- Feb 5, 2010
- 6
- 0
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Hi All---
Asking your advice to settle a debate.
My father has a coop that is roughly 12' x 10'. He is currently keeping about 18 adult laying birds, mostly chickens with a few guineas. (This is the coop that we used as a nursery in the past, bringing in new laying and/or broiling chicks, where they would live for the first month before moving outside to tractors.)
Anyway, he's thinking this year that he wants to try to make a temporary floor-to-ceiling framed wall with chicken wire, using cardboard 2/3 of the way up the wall. His idea is that he will keep his layers on the big side, and use the smaller room as a brooding space for 50 broilers until they can go out in the tractors.
My thought is that this is not a good setup for successful brooding space. I don't know how he can keep adequate ventilation for the bigger birds without the ammonia levels rising, which will hurt the babies. My other worry is that if he does keep it ventilated, there will be too much draft on the babies & we'll end up with a bunch of pasty bums---which no one wants.
Has anyone ever tried anything like this before? Should I encourage him to try? Or is it just a bunch of trouble waiting to happen?
Thank you in advance for your opinions.
Asking your advice to settle a debate.
My father has a coop that is roughly 12' x 10'. He is currently keeping about 18 adult laying birds, mostly chickens with a few guineas. (This is the coop that we used as a nursery in the past, bringing in new laying and/or broiling chicks, where they would live for the first month before moving outside to tractors.)
Anyway, he's thinking this year that he wants to try to make a temporary floor-to-ceiling framed wall with chicken wire, using cardboard 2/3 of the way up the wall. His idea is that he will keep his layers on the big side, and use the smaller room as a brooding space for 50 broilers until they can go out in the tractors.
My thought is that this is not a good setup for successful brooding space. I don't know how he can keep adequate ventilation for the bigger birds without the ammonia levels rising, which will hurt the babies. My other worry is that if he does keep it ventilated, there will be too much draft on the babies & we'll end up with a bunch of pasty bums---which no one wants.
Has anyone ever tried anything like this before? Should I encourage him to try? Or is it just a bunch of trouble waiting to happen?
Thank you in advance for your opinions.
