Where do you keep your brooders?

[chickens_rock]

Ours started out in a small kiddie pool in our dining room (that we hardly ever dine in). Once they started getting so dusty, they moved to a larger kiddie pool on the 3 seasons porch. Once they started getting too stinky they moved to an old rabbit cage in the garage waiting for their coop to get finished!!!

 

[chickerdoodle]

To help the dust problem:

1. Get large box fan--or more if lots of chicks.
2. Get a new furnace filter (good one --~ $3-4)
3. Get zip ties.
4. Take furnace filter and zip tie to the fan. The air should be sucked through the filter by the fan.
5. Put fan/filter in room with chicks.
6. Turn fan on low--medium depending on size of room or number of chicks.
7. Change filter as needed.

I have 5 chicks and NO DUST!!

 

[Boo-Boo's Mama]

Three brooders and a bunny in a cage are on our enclosed front porch which faces south...they are nice and cozy and this week are nearly "hot" since we have been in the 90's.

 

[SilverPhoenix]

The first...while (until it gets too stinky and they need more room!) I keep the chicks in my room. I've seemingly adapted to the red light and constant peeping, it doesn't affect my sleep at all. If there are only small amounts of chicks, sometimes they'll be in my room for quite a while. After that, they graduate to the larger pen in my garage.

 

[canyoncritters]

omg!! I'm so glad we're on the subject, and that I'm not the only one!!

I will have to show these posts to my super tolerant, but understandably frazzled husband! Ok, so I have a little brooder and a bigger brooder (for day old to 1 week old, and the 1wk to 3 week olds)in our bedroom, then I have several rubber storage bins(4) fitted w/ non slip rubber flooring and heat lamps in the office, and then I have a large wooden box brooder for my almost big enough to sleep outside guys in the kitchen. How you like them apples?

 

[tammyd57]

I use a huge see-through Rubbermaid tote for a brooder. It sits on top of my hot tub, which is about a foot outside my living room window. The tote is level with the window sill and at night it's all lit up and looks like a tv. I like having the dust and smell outside but still be able to watch them all the time.

 

[WildWalker]

Well, I I think I have about 30 chicks of varying ages, so I put two totes in a guest bedroom for 1d-2w/3w olds and I have a large 6' metal horse trough on my back porch where I keep the 3w-3m/4m olds - older then that they go outside with the big kids in the pen.

Atm I'm kind of running into a problem concerning their eating habits, they appear to be having trouble maintaining a well fed status despite our constant feedings. Even the chicks in the totes are having a hard time with it, some of them are well fed and others are bony - they were originally one tote until I broke them up today into a group of 7 and 8. Hopefully this should solve the problem.

The older babies, about 20, in the trough are just plain giving me a headache with their wastefulness, we used to have an 18" plastic chick feeder in there. Naturally they outgrew that so I put in an unused cat bowl/feeder thing with a 5x5" tray and a storage bin attached so it would fill up as it was used. I, in my cleverness, did not anticipate them going bonkers with their newfound toy and scratching it all into their cedar litter, little buggers. So I've set it up on blocks so they have to perch to each from it, and now they simply want to use it as a roost and sleep in the tray, rendering it useless as a feeder.

I'm at a loss really.

 

[Chook-A-Holic]

I converted a useless room(bedroom study)into a incubator/brooder room. I have 50 2wk. old Heritage RIR's in there brooding right now. The brooder was too small so I put it in the floor and made a coral out of boxes to give the chicks more room. I have the A/C vent blocked off right now and it doesn't take much heat to keep the chicks comfortable. As the chicks get older I start cooling the room a little before they make the big transition to the coop. The DW was a little concerned about what she was going to do with all of her stuff that was in the room. That was easily taken care of with a new storage bldg for her. A small price to pay so I can hatch/brood chicks in a dedicated space in the house.

 

[canyoncritters]

About the skinnier chicks in w/ the healthy chicks, you probably need to worm them. This happens from time to time and you can use wazine in liquid or pill form, but with little guys try the wazine liquid diluted out a bit, it works for mine w/ no side effects. Around 5-6 mos of age you can do it again and also start the ivomec eprinex pour on program if other parasites are a problem later on. (like mites and lice).

 

[EggsForIHOP]

Quote:
Me too!!! Don't use the dining room (who needs it when you work at IHOP) and I pass through it all the time, plus it's quiet in there. Their brooder didn't fit on the table though, had to pull the inserts out and squish the table to the side actually. My BF said it was "torture to raise them next to the very thing they could end up being served on" and I told her not to worry - we never eat at the table anyways! (I don't know yet that I could eat anyone...but I say the first one to attack me is on the bus to freezer camp!)