I am building an indoor brooder to keep meat birds before they go outside and I planned on screening in the top, mainly to hold the heat lamp. I was going to make the brooder 10" tall but I'm not sure if that would be too short for cornish x up to 4 weeks old. Does anyone know about how tall they are by about 4 weeks old?
I would make sure your brood is Wide enough for meat birds that are 4 weeks. They can quite large at that age, they will be at butcher age 2-4 weeks later and you will have a 4-6 lb bird. I just processed a batch of cornish at 8 weeks and they were all 6lbs and over so your brooder would have to be pretty big for 4 week old birds unless you are only getting 3 or 4 or. How many birds are you getting? I have never kept meaties in a brooder for 4 weeks before and especially not in my house. They stink. They stay inside my house in a brooder for 2 weeks and then they go outside, sometimes I keep them in the house only one week and then bring the brooder out to the carriage house (its attached to the house but its not heated) for the second week and then they go outside the a pen with a few heatlamps. I don't know how many birds you are getting but you need to consider the size of your brooder if you are going to keep them in for 4 weeks. Can you make more than one brooder and do it that way or can you put your birds outside sooner? I don't want to discourage you but, have you ever brooded chickens in the house before? Its a huge mess with all that dander after a couple of weeks, you have to dust daily, its the thing I hate most about brooding in the house. For cornish, the issue is not so much dander but the stink. They smell so bad by the time they are 4 weeks I could not imagine them being in my house. Just giving you something to consider so you can plan accordingly, good luck with it.
Well I'm glad to hear that people don't usually keep them inside for 4 weeks because the 4 weeks was really a just in case. I know i put ducks out at 2 weeks because they grow so fast and are so messy but also deal with temperature fluctuations much better than a chicken the same age. But these cornish x's grow so fast I guess they would be fine? I couldn't really imagine keeping cornish x in for that long anyway. And it would be 50 of them. I am just going to make the brooder a foot tall and put them outside as soon as possible.
