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- #11
appleacres
Chirping
- Feb 9, 2021
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Hey everyone, just an update here--I had GREAT success with my outdoors brooder. Here is what we did.
We have a 6x10 coop which is built with plain pine boards (so there are gaps between them), and has three windows at the top of the coop, so there's lots of ventilation. We took eco-foil floor joist insulation and made a single wrap of that all the way up to the windows on the outside of 1/2 of the coop, and a double wrap from 0-4' off the ground, and then we made a vertical partition at 4' so they essentially had a little cave that was 5x6x4' that was doubly insulated. We then put a type of heater that fills up with water (essentially, an old fashioned radiator that you can plug into the wall) in under the insulation cave, and also the heat plates. This allowed for my 3 week old guinea hens to have a space that was around 70 degrees in one corner, and around 60 degrees in the far corner away from the heat, plus if they were really cold they had the heat plates, without using heat lamps so it was nice and dark at night. I asked Brinsea and they do not recommend using heat plates when it is under 50 degrees, so I needed this supplemental heat source in addition to the heat plates because it was so cold.
The rest of the coop (so most of it) was completely 100% uninsulated. It got down to 28 degrees one night, with 20 mph winds, it even snowed! (And yes I checked on them a TON) But my little guinea hens were completely healthy and happy and seemed to love the different temperatures, and are now entering week 5.
They are starting to spend some time outdoors in a little run before I start letting them free range at weeks 6 or 8 and beyond. I would most likely not put them out into this coop like that in the first two weeks just because they seem really fragile up until then, but if anyone is wondering if brooding inside the coop is possible at these temps in general--it totally is! I will upload pictures later if I have some time.
We have a 6x10 coop which is built with plain pine boards (so there are gaps between them), and has three windows at the top of the coop, so there's lots of ventilation. We took eco-foil floor joist insulation and made a single wrap of that all the way up to the windows on the outside of 1/2 of the coop, and a double wrap from 0-4' off the ground, and then we made a vertical partition at 4' so they essentially had a little cave that was 5x6x4' that was doubly insulated. We then put a type of heater that fills up with water (essentially, an old fashioned radiator that you can plug into the wall) in under the insulation cave, and also the heat plates. This allowed for my 3 week old guinea hens to have a space that was around 70 degrees in one corner, and around 60 degrees in the far corner away from the heat, plus if they were really cold they had the heat plates, without using heat lamps so it was nice and dark at night. I asked Brinsea and they do not recommend using heat plates when it is under 50 degrees, so I needed this supplemental heat source in addition to the heat plates because it was so cold.
The rest of the coop (so most of it) was completely 100% uninsulated. It got down to 28 degrees one night, with 20 mph winds, it even snowed! (And yes I checked on them a TON) But my little guinea hens were completely healthy and happy and seemed to love the different temperatures, and are now entering week 5.
They are starting to spend some time outdoors in a little run before I start letting them free range at weeks 6 or 8 and beyond. I would most likely not put them out into this coop like that in the first two weeks just because they seem really fragile up until then, but if anyone is wondering if brooding inside the coop is possible at these temps in general--it totally is! I will upload pictures later if I have some time.
