This may sound dumb

[ridgefire]

but do you have to quarantine baby chicks from the flock. This year we will be getting a new shipment day olds from Cackle again. But I want to brood them out in the barn. But my year old flock is out there and I dont want to cause any problems. I have enough room out in the coop to set up the table top brooder, that way I dont have to deal with the dust and mess in my house again. The adult flock would be in the same room as the babies but they wouldnt have access to them.

This is what I used last year and want to use it again because it worked so well.

 

[patandchickens]

It is often recommended, especially in books, that you keep chicks in a separate building from older chickens until they are of an age to be put into the flock, or even older. Reason being that the older chickens may be carrying things that they themselves are immune to but that unsuspecting baby chicks may not be up for yet and could get sick from.

I am not sure how many people *do* this, of course

Pat

 

[ridgefire]

Well the ones that will be in the brooder wont really be introduced. We are getting 25 Cornish X so by the time they are old enough, well they would be old enough.


Unless the wife decides to get a few more layers with her shipment of Cornish

 

[98 gt]

There are no dumb questions, just dumb people...

 

[morelcabin]

I brood my chicks in the same shed as my older birds. They are seperated by a simple wire screen. If you trust that your flock is healthy there should be no problems. You might want to dust them for mites about a week before the chicks are due, and clean the coop to make sure there are no mites around. but otherwise I don't forsee any problems

 

[tim_TX]

The chicks are the vulnerable ones. You are protecting them from the diseases and sometimes unsanitary conditions that may be present in
the of-age environment. Nevertheless, [ just to be safe ] I never move my chicks out of the brooder house and into the barn until the chicks are 10 weeks old, even though they always go into their own area which is separated from the hens by a 4 foot wide walkway lined with wire on both sides. They stay in that area until they are the same size as the resident hens. Part of my reasoning is that its easier to keep the farm cats away from the chicks while they are in the brooder house than it is when they are in the hen house. The cats don't bother the hens, but they would use up 8 of their 9 lives to have a shot at the chicks.

 

[ranchhand]

Quote:


That's the truth!