Picking up chicks from Ideal tomorrow (Wed.) *pics added*

[Tigerjane]

I'm extremely excited, and I just had to share!

I don't know anyone else who has chickens (or wants chickens, for that matter), and my friends and family think this is an odd phase of mine. No one else understands my excitement, lol. But I know you guys will! I'm getting 8 chicks total tomorrow: 1 female dominique, 1 female golden campine, 3 st. run mille fleur d'uccles, 3 st. run white crested black polish.

I set up my brooder last night in my laundry room. It's a cardboard box that previously held a dining room chair. It's 13in. high, 20in. wide, and 39in long, and I plan on putting hardware cloth over the top. I have a 10in heat lamp with a 250watt red bulb suspended from a clothing rack over one end of the box, and a digital thermometer clipped to the side of the box under the lamp. In two hours the temp. got to 90*. I plan on putting an old bath towel in there, with paper towels on top until Saturday, when I'll switch to newspaper, pine shavings, and paper towel on top. I'm using a saucer with a heavy, overturned ceramic bowl as their waterer, and an egg carton as their feeder. Already have the organic feed ready to go, and I'm going to follow Ideal's suggestion of mixing a little sugar into their water for the first day or so. If I can figure out how the heck to post pictures on here (cause I've tried and it just isn't working for me!), I will put some of my brooder set-up on here.

I'm gonna be a chicken farmer!

 

[gritsar]

Congrats! I love my Ideal birds.
A couple of things to be cautious about. You may find that the 250 W bulb is a little too much for them after awhile, unless you keep your house very cool. I am raising chicks in an outdoor brooder and wasn't able to use the 250W bulb after the first week. It was simply too hot. Be sure the lamp is extra secure. Cardboard and heat lamps are not a good mix.
You want to avoid newspaper if at all possible. It's slick and can lead to spraddle leg.
Lastly, the water dish. Too deep and the chicks can drown.
Good luck and have fun.

 

[Tigerjane]

I now have pictures on my BYC page of the set-up.

 

[BackToMyRoots]

Congratulations! My family is very understanding since they started me on chickens at a young age, but my friends think it's some sort of midlife crisis. I bet they'll come around when those eggs start showing up...

 

[Tigerjane]

The brooder in my laundry room. You can see the clothing rack it's wrapped around and clamped to, and the digital thermometer clipped to the box in the back under the lamp.

This is a picture of the saucer and overturned bowl I'm using as a waterer. The pen is for comparison. All of the pictures were taken with my iphone, that's why the quality isn't so great.