New Brooder

[The YardFarmers]

You did a good job! What kind of chicks and how many are you getting?

Our new experiment was to put the brooder over our red worm compost bin- see if it helped with dust and odor and if it affected the worms. Used a wire floor- wasn't sure how I felt about that, but it seemed after the birds got bigger it was harder and harder to keep the brooder clean and they kicked up a lot more dust.

Show us a picture of your chicks when you get them!

YardFarmer Julie

 

[rittert3]

I'm getting 14 mixed breed eggs and 2 of them are stagered ahead. Fertility is low and its been pretty cold here so I got more eggs.

 

[Doll Maker]

Here's our new brooder. This is a 105 quart bin. We cut out half of the lid at the back, covered with wire. The smallest red heat lamp bulb we could find was a 250 watt one, so it's probably set about 4' above the bin. We put a hook in the ceiling beam, a chain and hook on the lamp holder so we can raise or lower it. At 4' above the bin it is keeping the warm side at about 92 degrees and the cool end is about 82. We were advised to start the babies on five or 6 layers of paper toweling until they learned what it was they were supposed to eat and didn't eat the wood shavings.
Our babies are due this week. We have about 28 coming and hopefully they will be comfy in this bin for a couple of weeks. We have a second one ready to go so we can split them up to give them more room.
I am wondering how long they need to be in the brooder before they can go outside. We've enlarged our chicken yard and coop and will divide it up and put the youngsters on one side seperated from the grown hens (5 big girls). Any suggestions on how long before they can go outdoors??
Here's our new brooder:

 

[The YardFarmers]

Doll Maker,

Where do you live? What's the temperature and weather like where you're at?

 

[Doll Maker]

NW Arkansas, just north of Van Buren. Our forecast highs this week mid 40's to low 50's and lows mid 20's to mid 30's. I figure they will have to be inside my workshop for at least three or four weeks and hopefully by then the weather will have levelled out a bit. This has been an awful winter everywhere but Canada I think

 

[catdaddy66]

Quote:

I have two bulbs and both are 250 watts (one each, red and white)

 

[rittert3]

Doll maker - 70*F is good enough for 6 week olds so if it warms up in time you might beable to take them out then or even if it hasn't lock them in a section of you coop with a heat lamp. I also want to add I have taken 4 week olds outside for supervised "play" then they came back in when I did. Granted that was early may and the temp was in the low 70s.

 

[DaiquiriDuck]

We just have an old wine case with a heat lamp hanging over the top and wire mesh covering it. Dad added a dimmer switch so we can control the amount of heat that way.
I have some old shelves I'm going to turn into a second box and copy the layout

Love your box though not enough windows for spying on the chicks