Yippee! The adventure begins...

[Prospector]

After much research here and elsewhere, and a fortuitous moment that involved constructing a series of raised garden beds and the unplanned collase of our front entryway, the materials and space are available to build a coop and bring home chicks.

It has taken about 2 weeks to find a breeder with what we want but I think we will have babies arriving in the next week. That means I have about 6 days to create a brooder.

Prevailing wisdom is that good brooders are made from dog crates, rubbermaids, an dsmall animal cages. We have one of each. Only one problem... There is a rabbit in the rabbit cage, the dog crate is on loan to friends, and the rubbermaids are filled with "stuff". How well do you think bunnies and chicks would get along?

? The rabbit has loads of extra space and hardly moves anyways, he's so lazy. Maybe we will have to go with a pet condo.

I just have to find a heat lamp for the little peeps, and we are on our way. Then we have a month to build a coop/tractor... Recycled porrch and lumber from the raised beds should cover that off.

 

[r-l-newell]

Quote:
Congratulations on the new chicks you are getting soon. I would suggest that you got to the local Walmart or any other store that sells the small plastic kids swimming pools and put some chicken wire over the top of it and then put your waterers and feeders in there on a brick and some pine shavings for them to lay on top of then you will be set for a little while until you get your new coop built. Plus you can clip the heat lamp on the side of the pool and then ajust it as necessary. Works great and is cheap (about $12). Hope this helps.

 

[Prospector]

Awesome idea!

We actually have a Mr. Turtle pool being blown around our property as we speak. So It could be even cheeper

!

Edit to add: We are picking up a dozen Chanticlers, and possibly putting up a second "home" for Marans. The plan is to keep them separate by having 2 tractors. Of course we have to get chicks before we get too far ahead of ourselves.

 

[Mervin]

Big cardboard boxes seem to work well also. You can get them a little deeper, so they easily accommodate waterers and feeders. We started out with a 20"Wx24"Lx18"D box and it easily held 6 newborns. We've since upgrade to the box our new bathtub came in and it has 12 chicks in it. I think it will serve until the coop is ready.

 

[r-l-newell]

Quote:
Our child sized swimming pool held twelve chicks (9-Rhode Island Red and 3-Americaunas) with no problem and as they got older and I got the chicken coop built I moved them outside into the coop.

It worked great and so much easier than having to look for a cardboard box large enough for them and have to worry about where you are going to put it. We kept our chicks in the pool in our spare room and it was just the right size.

 

[Prospector]

Since we have the pool, and space in the garage for it, I think it will work incredibly well. Our garage floor is clean sand (the slab was never poured) and I have seen some folks suggest using sand in place of shavings for mature chickens. Since the sand wasn't parked on, and it is available in abundance, can it be used to line the brooder, or do th elittle guys prefer shavings? Also, how long do they stay in th ebrooder for? I have seen suggestions that they be kept at 90 to start, then lower the temp by 5° per week, but I haven't seen how long before you move them to the coop.

It would be cool to hook up a thermostat to the heat lamp... now I get to be inventive.