This is my first ever batch of chickens (and my first post
) - four white leghorn pullets, two mystery pullets, and a straight run white silkie - who are now ten days old, and yesterday I decided their brooder was getting too small, so I built a new one. It took me about five hours.
This is the old brooder (complete with an audience of curious dogs who just don't understand the whole chicken thing yet) with a floor measuring roughly 1'x3':
And this is the new and improved brooder - with a floor that's 2.5'x5' - in the exact same spot in the living room:
For anyone interested, the materials used were:
1 4'x8' sheet of OSB
1 96" 2x4
3 8' 2x2
~ 30 sq. ft. of chicken wire
2 yards clear vinyl (w/ scrap remaining)
~ 30 1 1/2" wood screws
6 3" wood screws
more staples than I was willing to count
scrap 1x2 for perches (though anything would work)
Cost of materials would probably be around $35 (though everything I used was sitting in the garage long enough for me to forget exactly how much it cost).
The light is a 250W heat lamp and there's a thermometer on the back wall though it's hard to see in the picture (there's also a little sandbox - a shallow gladware container filled with sandy soil from the yard - that they love to scratch in). The front and about half the top is covered by the vinyl (the type you can get in the crafts section of
walmart) so I have an unobstructed view of my girls.
