Lamp distance!

[Jazmelina]

Have you checked for pasty butt too? (I do a routine check daily for the first few weeks anyway) I agree with the others, the brooder is also on the small side.

No pasty butt here, thankfully!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

No pasty butt here, thankfully!

 

[Iluveggers]

I took some cheap plastic garden fencing and cut it to the top of my brooder, then fastened with clips. It was cheap and easy to take off and put back on as needed.

There are some cheap pet playpens on Amazon that would work for a new brooder. Like this:

Large cardboard boxes work well also.

 

[Jazmelina]

I took some cheap plastic garden fencing and cut it to the top of my brooder, then fastened with clips. It was cheap and easy to take off and put back on as needed.

There are some cheap pet playpens on Amazon that would work for a new brooder. Like this: View attachment 3023422
Large cardboard boxes work well also.

Thanks for the tip!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Here's what we did:

We cut two sections out of each lid, leaving a supporting "bridge" in the middle. Then we used duct tape to anchor some flimsy netting in the place of what we'd removed. This allows plenty of ventilation and keeps the tub from overheating. We found this size tub is just about right for up to eight LF chicks for about three weeks. At that age we moved all 16 chicks to an outside brooder which also had a heat source at night, as this was then November. We actually did not keep them very warm, and we had virtually no pasty butt and suffered no losses. (One chick had a little pasty butt one time.) This was in contrast to previous years, when pasty butt was an ongoing problem and we lost several chicks.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

We also had two ceramic lamp housings, one containing a white lamp for daytime and one containing a red bulb for nights. These were anchored and wired to the rod in the closet and it was a simple matter to turn one off and the other on as needed. The bins were adjusted so each one was only partially warmed by the lamps, with one end of each bin farther away from the lamp to create a cool zone. The chicks could choose what area to be in. Food and water were in the cool zones.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Oh, sorry, I am remembering this in bits and pieces. We used puppy training pads for bedding, nothing else. We changed them out every evening at bedtime when we switched the lamps.