New brooder chicks

[Ridgerunner]

Depending on what your coop looks like you might be able to just put the heat plate out there. But there can be other issues, the brooder may be a good idea.

Since people often like photos I'll show my 3' x 6' brooder permanently built into the coop. That red shows where the heat lamp is. In winter I wrap the whole thing but this set-up is for spring. It doesn't get that cold but can still get nippy.

 

[Raymond Dean White]

That's a nice setup but for now I think I'll keep the babies inside--at least for a week or two. By then it will be much warmer and I can begin getting them used to the outside. We have a spa room that is surrounded on three sides and a roof but it open (screened) on the fourth wall. That room gets terribly hot in the summer but right now it's the perfect temperature for chicks. It doesn't get below 60 F at night in that room.

When the chicks are two weeks old I'll move them from inside the house into that room, then, when they've feathered out they can move to the coop. At least that's my plan so far. If anyone sees anything wrong with that please let me know.

How tall is your brooder box? Mine is just a large plastic tote with a hardware cloth cover on top but I can see that very shortly it won't be tall enough so I'll have to build a taller one.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Mine is 2' tall. It's elevated with a wire bottom so poop falls straight through. Keeps it dry and clean.

 

[Raymond Dean White]

Mine is 2' tall. It's elevated with a wire bottom so poop falls straight through. Keeps it dry and clean.

Very nice. The one I started on today will be 28" tall--just because I had some plywood on hand that was already cut to that dimension and I'm too lazy to cut it again. I'm hesitant to use a wire bottom because I fear new chicks could hurt their legs on the wire as I've heard other had that problem. If I do use wire I'll get 1/4" hardware cloth as they would be less likely to get their feet and legs stuck in it. Also, I'd build a tray lined with linoleum or heavy gauge plastic under the wire so I could just slide it out and hose it off into my compost heap. I have one of those trays in my coop under the roosts and they make cleaning it pretty easy.