Consolidated Kansas

[KsKingBee]

Same here, a lot of fanning. Haven't seen any fighting yet, we will have to move a few out soon.

 

[22qZoo]

maybe they need some Barry White

 

[chicken danz]

maybe they need some Barry White

 

[tazcat70]

Danz I understand! Last spring I was so overwhelmed with chicks that I started just giving them away. I told people they were straight run, and people still asked me for girls only. So last summer I sold my Sportsman incubator and hatcher. I was done! I think I am going to get a Genesis. That is @ 40 eggs every 3 weeks, that should be plenty! I had gotten to the point where my birds weren't fun anymore. I did not like it one bit!

 

[Trish44]

Danz I understand! Last spring I was so overwhelmed with chicks that I started just giving them away. I told people they were straight run, and people still asked me for girls only. So last summer I sold my Sportsman incubator and hatcher. I was done! I think I am going to get a Genesis. That is @ 40 eggs every 3 weeks, that should be plenty! I had gotten to the point where my birds weren't fun anymore. I did not like it one bit!

taz I can identify sometimes, I get a little overwhelmed when I have a bunch of chicks myself. I have been hatching lately for myself, but I'll have extras to sell after I figure out what I'm keeping. I have a waiting list for chicks, but the ones I have a lot of requests for aren't even laying yet. A few of my breeders are starting to lay again, but not very many. I think when you have the capability to hatch a lot of chicks you tend to hatch just because you can & there is nothing cuter than a baby chick, there just isn't. But they sure do suck down the feed as they grow. Danz has several incubators & a hatcher, so she really can go to town hatching. I don't have nearly the capacity as she does nor do I want to really. I was thinking today it would be so great to have a dedicated small building just for a brooder house. There is a guy in Ark City that has one like that, it's just a small building full of brooders & nothing else. It's climate controlled so he can use it year round, I think that would be wonderful. Then I wouldn't have to have brooders & chicks in my house in bad weather.

 

[chicken danz]

I have that brooder building and it's never enough! For one thing I don't get the chicks out of there soon enough and then it gets crowded. I really hope this year to sell chicks as I hatch them rather than keep them and see who I want to keep for breeders. Yeah I have the ability to incubate at least 850 chicken eggs at one time plus another 300 or so in the hatcher. Or I could drag out the styros and add another 80 or so. And I've often ran out of room. Of course when I hatch peafowl and goose eggs that reduced the number I can do at a time a lot. I will of course keep a few breeders but not like I have the last year. I have way too many birds right now. The chick starter bill alone will eat me alive.
I'm doing test hatches right now as the girls start laying here and there. But the darned weather just keeps messing up them getting with the program.
What I really really need right now is a lot more houses and pens to separate groups. And decent weather to go out and work the soil in the pens as well.
I have way too much work to do. It's really been a bad winter for spending hours out working and sometimes I just want to stay in and keep warm for a change.
But...Just the same I have more chicks ordered in more colors. Will I ever learn??

 

[22qZoo]

So I know this isn't a very good picture,anyway. The dogs have found a deer carcass some where and brought a leg bone up in the yard, no big deal ,right. Except I let the chickens out to free range for a bit and they ended up chasing the dog around trying to get at the bone and all of the "good stuff" that was still stuck to it. I had to put the dog inside the fenced front yard ,with the bone to keep the peace ! There were 8 chickens and a duck looking thru the fence at that dogs bone.

So I dug out some kind of meat thing from the freezer that nobody wanted to eat and thawed that out and let them eat it. I guess with laying starting back up and the cold wiping out any bugs they could scratch up they are craving some protein . It's interesting , I feed ff and some house scraps and generally think the birds are really healthy but I have noticed that when I do give them some extra protein (scrambled eggs,meat scraps,) the eggs do seem bigger.

 

[HEChicken]

22qZoo - chickens are really opportunistic eaters. They will continue to go after scraps and treats, even when their crop looks quite full, as while they were sleeping it will empty and be digested. Don't worry that they are lacking protein, just because they seem to want the dog's deer leg. They would want it no matter how much protein they had already ingested that day...

All this talk of brooder houses. For those who have a dedicated building just for brooding (or for those considering building one) what would you do differently if you were to rebuild? What features would you consider essential and what "nice-to-have"? What would make your life easier while both caring for chicks and cleaning out after them (or during brooding for that matter)? I probably won't ever have a need of a dedicated building just for chicks (at least I hope I'll never hatch that many) but I thought it might be a good discussion. Just like with coop building, it seems like there is always something we wish we had done differently and for people in the planning stages, it is nice to hear the feedback up front. Something you've done that you really like might give someone else an idea they wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and likewise, if yours has features you really don't like, it is nice for others to know what to avoid doing themselves.

To get it going, some of the things I thought of:

* Heat source (obvious right?) - but where it is mounted and what type make a huge difference
* Having a space to store feed, bedding, chick feeders and waterers when not in use, along with a storage area for medications
* Varying conditions - i.e. a way to let newly hatched chicks get more heat, while hardening off older chicks in preparation to be moved outside

I've used a variety of things as a brooder and each has had its disadvantages. The one I'm most disappointed in is the stock tank. I was so excited to have such a big brooder for them (it is round and about 4' across and 18"-2' high). The problem though was cleaning - it was hard to lean over to reach all areas - and interacting with the chicks. Again, it was uncomfortable to sit and lean over it for very long, and the size meant they could always run to the other side to get away from me. I wound up having to climb into it to handle them very much but that meant squatting in it since I didn't want to sit in chick poo. So the batch I raised in it turned out to be about as handleable as a broody raised chick.

 

[chicken danz]

Well HEChicken there's a lot I would change about my brooder house. And I've made a lot of changes along the way. The first thing I would do is have a removable board that goes across the doorway to keep the litter from falling out and allowing me to raise the litter higher. Ideally this board would have a couple latches so I could remove it when necessary and easily put it back in place. Then I would raise the "screen" door that swings toward the inside up so it met the top of this board. Again to let me use deeper litter.
I would have closeable vents all along the east and west sides of the building toward the top. Plus I would have windows for light but unlike what I have now I'd like some that opened from the top down rather than the bottom up.
Since we are dreaming here I would insulate and line the inside walls with that fiberglass wall board made for bathrooms. It's washable and sanitary.
I'd have everything in there set up to make modular changes like raised brooders or individual sections to divide breeds and sizes. I'd have a complete bank of outlets to plug stuff in. I have 6 outlets in my brooder house and it never seems to be enough. I would use sweeter heaters for chicks and continue to use the enclosed oil heaters on a thermostat for building heat. I think a sealed fan unit built into the house would be awesome to move air during hot summer months or when you need more ventilation.
The reason for the modular dividers are so you can easily change your pen and brooder set up depending on what you had in there as well as clean without running into a bunch of dividers.
Ideally I would prefer a permanent water system with cups for the chicks but that isn't practical when you change brooders and pens. Filling a bunch of waterers and feeders takes so much time.
Storage of equipment is another issue. The only way to do it would be to have an attached separate room. When I've stored items in the brooder itself they get so covered with chick dust you have to clean them again before you use them.
If it were a perfect world I would have a nice large temperature controlled building on concrete. I would have pex tubing running through the concrete with hot water to heat the floors. It could even be solar powered for that matter to heat it most of the time. If that were the case I'd have a hatching and incubating room in the same building complete with running water and a sink for cleaning things up.
Concrete floors would have a drain system so they could be washed down and sanitized. But they seem to me to be the most practical for keeping things clean and disease free and keeping rodents out.
Yeah I'm a dreamer..... but you asked!!
Oh one other thing! Also have a large dedicated shop vac right there for final cleaning.
I'm sure dreading the winter storms coming in. It wasn't too bad out there today feeding and watering. I just wish we had some really nice temperatures in store so I could start moving birds around.

 

[Trish44]

22qZoo - chickens are really opportunistic eaters. They will continue to go after scraps and treats, even when their crop looks quite full, as while they were sleeping it will empty and be digested. Don't worry that they are lacking protein, just because they seem to want the dog's deer leg. They would want it no matter how much protein they had already ingested that day...

All this talk of brooder houses. For those who have a dedicated building just for brooding (or for those considering building one) what would you do differently if you were to rebuild? What features would you consider essential and what "nice-to-have"? What would make your life easier while both caring for chicks and cleaning out after them (or during brooding for that matter)? I probably won't ever have a need of a dedicated building just for chicks (at least I hope I'll never hatch that many) but I thought it might be a good discussion. Just like with coop building, it seems like there is always something we wish we had done differently and for people in the planning stages, it is nice to hear the feedback up front. Something you've done that you really like might give someone else an idea they wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and likewise, if yours has features you really don't like, it is nice for others to know what to avoid doing themselves.

To get it going, some of the things I thought of:

* Heat source (obvious right?) - but where it is mounted and what type make a huge difference
* Having a space to store feed, bedding, chick feeders and waterers when not in use, along with a storage area for medications
* Varying conditions - i.e. a way to let newly hatched chicks get more heat, while hardening off older chicks in preparation to be moved outside

I've used a variety of things as a brooder and each has had its disadvantages. The one I'm most disappointed in is the stock tank. I was so excited to have such a big brooder for them (it is round and about 4' across and 18"-2' high). The problem though was cleaning - it was hard to lean over to reach all areas - and interacting with the chicks. Again, it was uncomfortable to sit and lean over it for very long, and the size meant they could always run to the other side to get away from me. I wound up having to climb into it to handle them very much but that meant squatting in it since I didn't want to sit in chick poo. So the batch I raised in it turned out to be about as handleable as a broody raised chick.

We can all dream right? The building I was talking about that the "birdman" in Ark City has is not just one big brooder, he has built different sizes of brooders with aisles that he can walk down to get to each row of brooders. That's really what I would love to have. I have 4 brooder boxes I have built out of OSB & they're all sitting up on cinder blocks so that the boxes sit on the smallest end of the block to make it taller if that makes sense. That way I don't have to bend over to tend to the chicks, my old back just won't take all of that bending over any more. I haven't gotten doors put on the two biggest ones yet, I use them but have to jerry rig it right now till this spring when I can really work on the doors. I would have an insulated building with enough ventilation & have it cooled as well in the heat of the summer, so I guess the vents would have to be able to be open or closed depending on time of year. You wouldn't want all of your cool air going out the vents. I just got my first sweeter heater & I'm really liking it lots better than the Brinsea Ecoglows. I got the kind you hang so it could be adjusted to the height I need it at the time. I have it in the brooder right now with brand new chicks, so it's lower. I had to set up another brooder for the 3 week old RIR chicks that just aren't feathered out enough to go outside yet in this weather, so since I'm trying to get away from heat lamps altogether due to fire risk I took the legs off of my large Brinsea Ecoglow & hung it from the top of the brooder & I need some smaller hooks, but I think it's going to work. I don't like the Ecoglows that well because of the fact that I had problems with the chicks piling underneath them & smothering each other. You can't see the chicks under them without lifting them up completely. I hope to get some more sweeter heaters later on, I wish I had bought them in the beginning.

You really need more than one size of brooder I think, I have a couple of sizes of them, smaller ones for brand new chicks until they outgrow those & then bigger ones for the inbetween stage when they're not quite ready to go outside yet. This is my first winter having to deal with baby chicks & the cold, so it's been a challenge to house them & then try to acclimate them to get them outside. I have taken the older ones that are fully feathered out to the garage where it's cold, but they're out of the wind & gotten them used to colder temps before putting them completely outside in the growout pen.

Danz, I think the water system would be wonderful if you had the building heated so the water wouldn't freeze. That's my problem in the garage is that I have no insulation in that building & the water still freezes in there.

I think you could build some kind of wood boxes to store feed, shavings, etc. in so the dust wouldn't get in there so bad. Then it would be nice to have shelves just for the vitamins & meds to have some place to keep them.

That would be my dream brooder house!