Ideas for inexpensive bigger brooder needed, please!

[Elanab]

I tried searching, and didn't find exactly what I was looking for. My apologies if I missed it. We have five birds; three Silkies, a Mille Fleur, and a Wyandotte. We've had them for about two weeks, and it seems that they're beginning to out grow the storage bin we've been using as a brooder. The Wyandotte has escaped a few times by taking flight from the top of the Brinsea heater. We put a pet carrier top on top of the bin, but the opening was on the same side as the heater, so the Wyandotte was able to escape.

My husband is building a greenhouse/henhouse, and should be done in the next week or two, but the birds grew faster than I expected them to. Thanks for any help provided!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Dollar General swimming pool and chicken wire.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Big cardboard box, like from an appliance store, or tape some smaller ones together to make a big enclosure. Cover with chicken wire, bird netting, something, to keep them from flying out.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Big cardboard box, like from an appliance store, or tape some smaller ones together to make a big enclosure. Cover with chicken wire, bird netting, something, to keep them from flying out.

Better add a plastic sheet of some sort.

 

[lazy gardener]

Appliance box can be recycled into the garden when you're done with it. Yep. they grow fast!

 

[beki81]

Ive used an indoor rabbit cage for the first time with my ducklings this year. I had 10 ducklings (5 runners and 5 Shetlands) in it for 3 weeks before they outgrew it. It was the middle sized cage approx. 1 meter by 1/2 meter in size. It worked well as it had the solid plastic base to contain any wet/mess and the cage top to keep the ducklings from escaping and allowing me to thread any wiring from their electric hen brooder easily.
I don't know if that's going to be much use to you though as if your chicks are already a couple of weeks old, they may be almost the same size as my ducklings when they needed to move out? However, I know in the uk you can buy a larger sized indoor cage that is about 1.5 meters long for about £50 - perhaps that could be an option?

 

[PachecoPeeps]

Big cardboard box, like from an appliance store, or tape some smaller ones together to make a big enclosure. Cover with chicken wire, bird netting, something, to keep them from flying out.

You can also look at grocery stores for the cardboard boxes the keep watermelons, potato’s, etc in. They are usually deep and pretty big.

 

[Toothpick]

I used a large plastic tote for 15 chicks. I can’t remember the exact size, 40qt I think. Maybe bigger. They were only in it for a few weeks and then I put them in the coop. Afterwards I just washed out the tote and used it for something else. If I need it again, I have it.

 

[Noellereagan]

I used an outsdoor storage chest and took the top off and replaced with wire. The kind that you could fit all sorts of balls, bats etc inside. That’s what it had been used for.

 

[Chicken Strut]

x2 on the watermelon box idea. They are huge & deep! Ask the produce manager at your favorite store. At Wal-Mart and some other grocery stores, they move them out onto the floor for display in these boxes.