Made my brooder from an old pine dresser

[G-Man]

I had a tenant move out and leave a dresser and parts of a broken bed.
The only before picture I have is this one taken at the rental house in town.
It was missing the bottom drawers and the ones that are there were badly damaged.




My original plan was to sand the entire cabinet down and apply the red stain you see on the door. Even after a ton of sanding and applying a soft wood conditioner, the stain went on pretty blotchy... I wasn't happy with the finish and just decided to leave it as it is.




I know the chicks will probably outgrow this brooder fairly quick. I'll be using this cabinet inside my hen house (on the human side) as a place to keep a bird that needs to be isolated from the flock for whatever reason.



I found an under counter fluorescent light fixture that I mounted on the ceiling of the brooder.
I still need to come up with some locking hardware for the door.



Now I'm ready for my chicks to hatch.

 

[Shayna]

That is such a great idea!

 

[gryeyes]

Great job! Far better than my attempt at doing something similar.I once turned an old dresser I found at Goodwill into a brooder, but I has the not-so-bright idea to keep the bottom drawer inside it, thinking I could just pull it out when I needed to add shavings or fill the waterer and feeder. Well, that meant I couldn't put the hardware cloth completely over the front, or make doors for it... So the hardware cloth was a wrapped affair... But the braces for the drawers, sans the middle and top drawer, worked very well as baby chick roosts. Lovely marble top... I wish I had thought it through like you did, though! Sadly, I no longer have that dresser to re-work.

But yours is great!

 

[Velma&theChix]

I love this idea and you did such a wonderful job building it! Makes me want to go out and find an old dresser.

 

[G-Man]

Thank you everyone for your positive remarks. I'm glad you like it.

Tenants leave stuff after they move out all the time; mostly just garbage they don't want to deal with. I stored it untouched in my garage for way more than the law requires.
As soon as I saw it still in the bedroom, I knew I was going to use it for my coop build.
I carefully disassembled the remaining four drawers and am planning to use those materials for the nesting boxes too.