BROODER thread! Post pics of your brooders!

Last year I ordered one of these for my hen with a broken leg, she slept inside of it most of the winter in my living room. Since it has been so nice outside she has been out there a lot more, so I decided to use it for a brooder this spring. At least for their first few weeks. This thing is amazing! The only issue I really see with it is there is nowhere to hang my water. But we remedied that.... I don't have pics right now of how I have the water attached, but I can take a pic when I get home. Here is how we are set up right now:



You can see where the water bottles are hanging in this pic, but unfortunately I don't have a better pic right now.

I will have to take a picture of the outside as well. It is in the corner of my back porch, and we screwed a board with two 45's on either end in the corner of the porch, like a brace would be, then we screwed 3 other boards to it and screwed in some eye bolts to hold their water bottles and a screw to make sure the heat lamp does not fall.

I make my own water bottles with poultry nipples, large empty gatorade/powerade/whaetever bottles I have available, and some wire. I vastly prefer these over the other waterers. Takes me less than 5 minutes to make one and I have definitely gotten well over $10 of use out of the 2 packs of poultry nipples I bought last year, plus I dont have to clean out dirty water daily, and no one makes a big wet mess! We have some fairly absorbent bricks under the nipples to catch drips and for the vertically challenged chicks, and as a bonus they dry fast too.
 
I'm an outdoor brooder. I live in Hawaii so temps are good year round, night and day.

I use two baby pens hooked together. I use a tarp over one side with the heat lamp and heating pad for the first couple of weeks. Then they both are turned off. Over the top I use deer netting to keep them in and other birds out.

My latest batch of 30 are almost a month old and have been moved to their big girl coop, a 12 x 12 shed. They will have another 12 x 12 shed when they get too big to share the one shed.

 
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Last year I ordered one of these for my hen with a broken leg, she slept inside of it most of the winter in my living room. Since it has been so nice outside she has been out there a lot more, so I decided to use it for a brooder this spring. At least for their first few weeks. This thing is amazing! The only issue I really see with it is there is nowhere to hang my water. But we remedied that.... I don't have pics right now of how I have the water attached, but I can take a pic when I get home. Here is how we are set up right now:



You can see where the water bottles are hanging in this pic, but unfortunately I don't have a better pic right now.

I will have to take a picture of the outside as well. It is in the corner of my back porch, and we screwed a board with two 45's on either end in the corner of the porch, like a brace would be, then we screwed 3 other boards to it and screwed in some eye bolts to hold their water bottles and a screw to make sure the heat lamp does not fall.

I make my own water bottles with poultry nipples, large empty gatorade/powerade/whaetever bottles I have available, and some wire. I vastly prefer these over the other waterers. Takes me less than 5 minutes to make one and I have definitely gotten well over $10 of use out of the 2 packs of poultry nipples I bought last year, plus I dont have to clean out dirty water daily, and no one makes a big wet mess! We have some fairly absorbent bricks under the nipples to catch drips and for the vertically challenged chicks, and as a bonus they dry fast too.



Took some more pics yesterday. So far this is my favorite brooder set up we've had! Aside from my nursery for the teeny tiny ones that need extra TLC, nothing beats the mama heating pad set up!
 
I have just managed to hatch out 2 chicks, after a staggered hatch session ... silly hen kept visiting my broody and giving her new eggs !!!!!

Anyway I managed to hatch 2 out primarily using a bedsid lamp for 4 days .. eventually I was given a incubator as I was not getting any sleep nursing these silly eggs.

So 2 hatched in the last 24hrs and now I upto the 'Quick I need a brooder' stage ...

I bought a tote and thought I could use a reptile heat-pad I have handy (trying not to spend too much on all this).

Has anyone used one of these before ?

http://www.zoomed.com/db/products/E...7czoxOiIwIjtzOjg6IlNlYXJjaF95IjtzOjE6IjAiO30=

I plan to stick it to the outside of the tote and them cover it with a reflective insulation sheet.

I have taken the base tray out of the bator to keep the 2 chick warm and safe for now, while I set something up. So I can run it and test it out for a day or so, first.

What temps am I aiming for .....

 
I got excited when I saw that people had used an XL dog kennel for a brooder. I happen to have one in storage. I covered it in hardware cloth and used cardboard up the sides for extra warmth and to keep the shaving in.
We have 6 sweet babies in here and they seem to be very happy. We have it in the garage, so I have two sides and the top covered with a thick blanket. *NOTE: I later moved he heat lamp inside the kennel after temping.
These are our first chickens and our family of 6 is super stoked for this bunch of ladies!! Next weekend we start the coop in the backyard. We are using part of our raised deck as shelter and building the coop under it, some of the run (for shade) and continued run as well. I haven't been able to find much on that so I'll be sure to take lots of photos of our Custom Coop.
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I got excited when I saw that people had used an XL dog kennel for a brooder. I happen to have one in storage. I covered it in hardware cloth and used cardboard up the sides for extra warmth and to keep the shaving in.
We have 6 sweet babies in here and they seem to be very happy. We have it in the garage, so I have two sides and the top covered with a thick blanket. *NOTE: I later moved he heat lamp inside the kennel after temping.
These are our first chickens and our family of 6 is super stoked for this bunch of ladies!! Next weekend we start the coop in the backyard. We are using part of our raised deck as shelter and building the coop under it, some of the run (for shade) and continued run as well. I haven't been able to find much on that so I'll be sure to take lots of photos of our Custom Coop.
Nice crate mod!
Chances are you don't need that much heat in that small a space.
An incandescent 60-100W bulb would probably be enough,you can get them in red at a reptile supply source.
A dimmer extension cord works great to adjust heat output.
 
Nice crate mod!
Chances are you don't need that much heat in that small a space.
An incandescent 60-100W bulb would probably be enough,you can get them in red at a reptile supply source.
A dimmer extension cord works great to adjust heat output.

Yeah my light is on the inside I had to block the front door cause cocky is getting too smart and jumping up on the water dish to go over the card board so easy fix mini being blade I have laying around from making romantic shades
 
Tis the season...and i made the mistake of going to TSC. 12 chicks later...everyone has settled in nicley. Went to the local supermarket and asked for one of their watermelon boxes. They are 3/4 of an in thick. The black thing on the floor...my wifes way of keeping an eye on them when at work.

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