BROODER thread! Post pics of your brooders!

[allen wranch]

Yep, hardware cloth and a snug top should keep snakes out.

 

[lavacaw]

Not planning on having peeps anytime soon so my brooder is no longer up and running. It consisted of a large tractor tire with one rim side cut out. I placed it directly on the ground in the chicken house and put in a couple of inches of wood shavings covered with paper towels for the first couple of days. A feed trough and waterer went in and a piece of chicken wire stapled to 1 x 2's made a top. I used a 125 watt infrared heat lamp suspended from the ceiling. A large thermometer was placed on the floor and the lamp moved until the temp. was where I wanted it. I do a trial run to make sure everything is working before the chicks arrive. The light can be raised as needed and leaving the side on the top of the tire allows the chicks to get out of the heat if needed. When I think they are large enough, I simply remove the wire top and let them start moving around in the chicken house. A week later, the tire is out of there.

 

[Chick_a_dee]

Quote:
We do have Lowes here, out in the Vaughn and Hamilton areas... Newstalk 1010 were at the opening of one about a month ago ahah.

 

[newchickenfamily]

Here is my brooder! My neighbor recently bought a new Plasma TV, so she thought the box would be perfect for our new chicks (and it is!) There happens to be a heavy duty cardboard "lift out tray" in the bottom which makes it so easy to clean the thing! Just lift out the tray and dump into the compost bin!! Not sure what the tray did for the TV but it sure works good for my chicks. Also, there are handles at the bottom of the box which made it a cinch to slide in a roost pole about 6 inches from the bottom. Perfect for my 6 week old chicks. Doesn't take up too much space in DH's garage either!

**Sorry that the photo is on it's side! I tried to flip it every which way on Photobucket but couldn't get it right!!**

 

[WillsMama93]

Quote:
A good trick to ward off snakes.. moth balls.. we have a local exterminator that uses them to drive snakes out from under decks and houses.. I plan on hanging several cheesecloth bags filled with mothballs on the outside of my coop once we get it built. It will be raised about 3 feet off the ground and enclosed in hardwarecloth so the girls can get under it for shade and shelter during the day when they are in the run, and the mothballs will deter snakes from crawling in and chowing down.

 

[allen wranch]

Be careful where you put the mothballs. The fumes could be toxic to the chicks.

 

[Ailsa]

Ohhh I wish Id looked here before letting my brother in law buy a brooder!
He spent a fortune on it and to be honest... the home made ones look better!
Ill go take some pictures and post as soon as I can

 

[WillsMama93]

Quote:
Carla- Do you think it would be ok if they were hung on the outside of the coop? Not inside where the ventilation might not be so good. I certainly don't want to do ANYTHING to endanger my chickens, hence the thoughts about mothballs to keep the snakes away.. but if there is risk, I may just stick with the hardware cloth for the bottom 3 or 4 feet of my run, and for under the coop.

Thanks!

 

[allen wranch]

Hardware cloth is the best, and plug up any holes.

Snakes can climb, so hardware cloth just around the bottom would not do any good.

Moth balls on the outside of the coop should be OK, but test how potent they are before putting the chicks inside.

 

[LynneP]

This is Plan B, a transition brooder of sorts. We found that the original brooder was outgrown when they were 2 weeks old, they were bonking their heads when they jumped.

So we moved them to the insulated coop in our barn (like Fort Knox!) and set them up like this. Don't be fooled by those notches in the beams, they're from a church erected in the 1760's and held connecting pieces of wood, but they're solid from the half-way mark.

The chicks love this setup and are exploring the bigger world with lots of natural light as well as infrared.