DIY Brooder

[Chicky-bock-bock-mamma]

Than

How many would be good to know. But let's get some basics out of the way.

The wet side of Oregon is probably going to warmer at the end of February than the dry side though you can still have a cold snap either side. Here I normally take my chicks out of the brooder at 5 weeks but my lows seldom get below zero Fahrenheit. You might be facing colder than that. The coop I keep them in without heat has excellent ventilation up high but really good breeze protection down low where they are. I raise mine outside in a large brooder in the main coop. I keep one side pretty toasty but the far end can sometimes have ice in it. They play on that colder end more than a lot of people would expect, so they are acclimated to colder weather. I don't know what your coop looks like and raising them indoors makes it harder to acclimate them, but some people take them out into the cold during the day for short stretches to acclimate them.

If your coop is in pretty good shape for ventilation and breeze protection I'd think six weeks is about the earliest I'd suggest you take them out. That's a shame since you two hatches are going to be about five weeks apart. I'd hesitate to put just hatched chicks in with five week olds. Sometimes that works out but sometimes the older kill the younger. I'd want a separate brooder for the younger or at least the option to put them in a different brooder if you need to.

To me the ideal brooder has one spot that is warm enough in the coolest conditions and a spot cool enough in the warmest conditions. There are a lot of different ways to provide that warm spot, they all have their benefits, risks, and limitations. I use heat lamps out-of-doors but heating pads, heat plates, hovers, emitters, and other things can work very well, indoors or out. If you decide to use a heat lamp my first suggestion is to throw that clamp away so you are not tempted to rely it. Use wire to hold it in place so it cannot be knocked loose. Do not use string of plastic that can burn or melt, use wire. Indoors I assume your temperature will constantly be in the 70’s. You won’t need a 250 watt bulb, a 125 or even a 75 watt should be plenty. You won’t need any heat after three weeks. Make sure your brooder is big enough so the far end is quite a bit cooler away from the heat. That’s one of the risks of using a heat lamp, the brooder gets too warm throughout especially with a large bulb and a small brooder.

Hopefully people that use other methods to heat will tell you a bit on how to set them up and what risks to look out for.

By the time they are a couple of weeks old they can fly pretty well. Whatever type of brooder you use needs to have a top on it to keep them from flying out.


By the time they are six weeks old they will be a lot larger than when they hatch. You need to plan for that. Some people will give you square feet per chick numbers that require more space in a brooder than for full grown chickens in a coop, I won’t do that. I do believe the more space you have the better, within limits. Since you are hatching you don’t know how many of what sex you will have. By four to five weeks males need more space than females. The more chicks you have the less square feet per chick they need, to a certain point. There is a fair chance not all the eggs you set will hatch but I think that is what you should base your brooder on, hopefully you will get lucky. If you can tell us how many eggs you will set I’ll hazard a guess as to a minimum size I think you need but my experience is limited to five weeks, not six, when the brooder is kind of crowded.

When you brood chicks in the house they can be loud. That doesn’t bother some people, especially if you leave them in the dark at night when you are trying to sleep, but it can bother some people. If you don’t keep the brooder dry it can stink. It can get wet from the waterer or if you let the poop build up too thick. There are ways to manage that but you do need to manage it. One of the big complaints is that the chicks create a lot of dust. That dust can be dander from down or skin flakes coming off, hopefully no family members are allergic to chick dander. They are constantly scratching the bedding, that can turn it into dust. And if their poop gets really dry, which you want to keep the stink down, they can scratch that and turn it into dust. Lots of people brood in their bedroom, dining room, or den but you might want to consider brooding in a room you can close the door and isolate, maybe a spare bedroom. Some people use the guest bathroom and use the tub as the brooder. If you have a cat or dog you might find it beneficial to be able to lock them out, or at least make sure they cannot get into the brooder.

As for ideas about how you can build a brooder you might want to look through this very old very long thread. It shows what people have used. As you can see you are pretty much limited by your imagination. Lots of different things work.


https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/brooder-thread-post-pics-of-your-brooders.6233/page-350

 

[Chicky-bock-bock-mamma]

Thank you for your advice!!! I appreciate it!!! I am on the wet side of Oregon, but the temps will probably only get to the teens if even that! So I am trying to be very conscious of the wet cold and to protect the little babies!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Not sure what your weather will be like at the end of March, first of April when that second group turns five weeks. They may be able to go out then. You probably won't get all 24 or more to hatch but you have to be ready if you get lucky. I have had some really great hatches. I'm assuming they are full sized fowl, not bantams.

I've had 28 chicks in a 3' x 5' brooder until they were 5 weeks old. They were getting pretty crowded but I did not have any emergencies or drama with them. Almost all of them were female. Another time I had 21 chicks in that same brooder for five weeks but they were almost all male. Again it was getting pretty crowded but no drama. Males take up more room than females. I seldom get a hatch that is actually 50-50 for sex. A 2/3 to 1/3 split either way is probably more normal. You just never know.

I think your minimum size for 24 or more chicks to possibly six weeks is 3x6 or 4x5, somewhere in that range. They will grow that much in six weeks, hard to believe when you see the baby chicks. That could be tight if something happens and you are not ready to move them outside at six weeks. Maybe instead of using a bath tub use the entire guest bathroom and plan on some really heavy cleaning afterwards. Probably not the size you expected but this is the minimum I'd go with.

I don't know what other options you may have. A lot of us brood outside in an outbuilding or the coop itself, even in winter, but that is rougher. You have to take into account temperature swings when setting up heating and you have to keep water thawed. A lot of people brood in an attached garage or maybe a sun room or closed in porch.