Ideal sending chicks early! Yipee! in other words:what was I thinking?

clkingtx

Songster
10 Years
Dec 1, 2009
178
0
109
Hello all,
I had been slowly getting ready for our chick arrivals on Jan 13th, no rush since it is over a week, right? I am moving right along, have the enclosures constructed(cardboard), and planning to pick up the lights and bedding, and accessories the first of the week, still with plenty of time to get it all set up and tested.

So Ideal calls me today, verifies my order for next week, and says they'd like to ship them this week, meaning today! I said, "Sure! That would be great!" After I hung up, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. So I rushed around today, knowing I only had about 5 hours or so to work, and found the bedding, the light bulbs and heat lamps; the feeders, waterer lids, and chick starter. I got home and remembered I had to rearrange the stuff in the garage to make room for the brooders, and get everything set up. I got everything done but the lights, which my husband did after church. All is fine, except the temp is not high enough under the heat lamps. We are going to buy higher wattage bulbs tomorrow, the 60 watt ones (only ones I could find), are only raising the temps to between 62-72 degrees(it is about 40 in the garage). I figure we will get 125 or 250 watt, whichever we can find, and call it good enough. I am so excited that my babies may be here tomorrow!!!!!!! If I can figure out how to upload a picture, I will show my setup, then pics when the babies come!

Carrie

brooder set up, empty:
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Looks good! How exciting for you. My dh says no more brooding in the garage (we'll see...) after the dusty mess from last year. I'm going to try pellets instead of shavings next time. Wait, no more brooding in the garage.....
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Make sure to check your light fixtures and see what they are rated for. Some won't handle a 250 watt bulb and it could start a fire.

Enjoy the new fuzzy butts! Don't forget to post pictures!!

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No more brooding in the garage? Maybe we could make up a new name for it, then it would be ok??? Thanks for the input, my light fixtures are 300w or higher, so they will be ok. I appreciate the warning, though. Hopefully tomorrow(really later today, since it is am) I will be posting some cute chickie and duck pics. All my chicks are the hatchery specials, so I will have a lot of fun guessing who is who and what.

Carrie
 
Ooh my!!! Where'd you get those metal cages thingies?????? O.O

I found these big boxes too brood my chicks in that I can just throow the bottom away (it comes out and I can get a new one instead of cleaning bedding). What do you do?
 
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I believe those are likely plastic. IIRC, they're sold at pet supply places for more domesticated animals (childrens?
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My bud (the "gentleman farmer") has several... used to hold rabbits & chicks during (warmer weather) hutch/brooder cleanings.
The good thing is they can be scrubbed hard & hosed off... the bad thing is that chicks will deposit enough poo in the mesh to require them to be scrubbed hard!
 
CongrATES- Mine from ideal are due on the 13 and i haven't even started to get the bird building ready. I have a universal box brooder from gqf but it only holds 50 till 2 weeks and the drop paper gets pretty nasty. I love it when I have small amounts of chicks ( 20 is perfect) but I ordered 50! If I made a setup like yours on the floor about how often do you have to change the bedding?
 
Forgot to mention, Ideal called (twice) about shipping my order 45 days early. This led me to believe they "over hatched" for that week?

Unfortunately, I had to decline to get a separation between my birds & my friends (they have 100)... can't house them all outside & didn't want them ALL maturing at the same time.
 
That looks like a great set up for the chicks. I have a few of the metal exercise pens and I use those for everything! I have also used them to separate a broody from the rest of the chickens when she's sitting on eggs. It gives her plenty of room while keeping the other hens off her nest.
 

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