Chick Brooder Box

[walking bird]

I need to build one. Any advice/guidelines?

[stangardener]

i raise runner ducks. you might look into them if you want quite birds that lay alot and make you smile. right out of the incubator i put them in a double deep long hive with 1/2" hardware clothe as the floor. 1"x4" legs raise the box high enough to slide three kitty litter box trays underneath. add a clip on incandesant light and a migratory cover and your good for a couple weeks. i also use a reptile heater rock. ducks don't need as much heat as chickens but they make a bigger mess on account of them playing in their water. week three and four i put them in a 4'x4'x2' high box with a wire floor over straw. a galvanized wash tub with a porceline bulb fixture makes a good larger brooder hood. use adjustable legs or blocks to hold it up.

[NeilV]

Here's an idea:

http://theindependentamerican.freeye...m/projects.pdf

[cow pollinater]

Keep it simple. We've raised thousands of chicks of all different kinds of poultry and the best brooder so far is a cardboard box that is just large enough to allow the birds to get away from the heat lamp if they need to. Put it in a corner of the room where there's not much draft and hang a light-bulb a day in advance and moniter the floor temperature. Ninety-five degrees under the lamp is ideal but a little off is fine as the birds will adjust to their comfort level. Chicks do better in bunches, so get more than a few and you'll have less of a death loss.

[Scrapfe]

I need to build one. Any advice/guidelines?

What kind of chicks. Store bought, self incubated or hen hatched?

[Natalie]

I agree, most anything will do as long as they can't escape and they can go under the heat lamp when they want and get away from it when they want.
I had two glass reptile terrariums with double doors (that locked into place)and a screened top cover that snapped into place.
I put the lamp right over the screen and put some shavings in with their food and water dishes and they were good to go.
Make sure you put some small stones in the waterer so they don't fall in and drowned, someone told me to do that with my first hatch and I am glad they did.
The way they knock each other around in there and sit on top of each other I could see how someone could lend up in the dunk.
They seemed to like the glass walls as they could see all the action going on outside.
After they are a few weeks old I move them out to the carriage house into the grower pen and then onto the coop.
I am hoping to have a grower pen built into the new coop, one less stop on the way.

[Jon L]

We use a small kids pool with shavings and a red heat lamp off to the side.

[wayacoyote]

If you try to confine them inside a cardboard box, forget it. We had ours in the hallway in a box that they couldn't jump out of. And every day, i'd have to add more height to the walls. Then they started perching on their watering jars and jumping from them...

[walking bird]

What kind of chicks. Store bought, self incubated or hen hatched?

Eggs from my chickens, hatched in an incubator.

[wayacoyote]

Our chickens came from a variety of sources. Neighbor, Menonite friend, etc. We hatched them in an incubator in two separate batches last year. The first, we sent to Papa. the second run, we hatched 34 out of 36. 2/3 were cockrels and were butchered later. We're getting about a dozen eggs /day from the hens now.

[Scrapfe]

I need to build one. Any advice/guidelines?

All the ideas presented are workable, but I don’t recommend cardboard. Way to weak when it gets wet, and it will get wet, even inside a building, and then there’s the litter to change. I always was partial to a TBH looking contraption about 3 feet high, and 5 to 6 feet long, with 12 inches of ground clearance and a 2 foot high brooding area. The sides were enclosed by 1 inch chicken wire or ½ inch chicken wire if I could get it. The floor was ¼ inch hardware cloth. Both ends, one side, (the back one) and the top are covered with roofing tin to provide a wind break and to stop blowing rain. The inside was divided in half by a piece of 2X4 inch welded wire. Any chick smaller than an emu can pass through this easily. However, if you were hatching your eggs via the old setting hen method, she will scratch the chicks’ food all over Hades and half of Georgia. However, the hen can be prevented from reaching the chicks’ food by keeping her confined to only one side. A cup hung on the chick only side of the welder wire divider is utilized to feed the brooding hen in. The water fountain can be positioned on the chick only side within reach of the mother hen.

The top was a double top somewhat like an outer and inner hive cover only without the vent holes. This inter cover was a two piece cover only a little longer than ½ the length of the inner diminutions and sized to slide back and forth on ¼ round trim pieces nailed to the insides of the top frame. Scrap paneling works well for the inter covers since they remain dry. If not hatching under the mother hen one half of the open side can be fully covered by tin, and a piece of burlap hung from top to bottom from the welded wire used to divide the inside into two equal parts. The fully covered side can then have a heat lamp hung in it to provide the peeps mother hen like warmth. The unheated side is used for a chick run when they have absorbed enough heat to ramble and eat.

Gravel or marbles in the chick waterier to prevent the peeps from drowning is a must. I also believe that if you dye their first water with green food coloring, (to simulate water in it’s "NATURAL" state) the chicks will find the water sooner, recognize what it is better, and swim a lot less.

A brooder pen constructed like this can be used both inside or outside of another building. Those in New England or the Upper Mid-West might consider the time of year or housing this brooder inside another building before setting, hatching, or ordering early chicks. If you decide to build a brooder-starter box like this and need more information PM me.

[walking bird]

wow, great description Scrapfe, much appreciated. Sounds fun to make, too!

[Matt NY]

My first batch of 25 store bought chicks did pretty good in my bathtub. After a week they outgrew it though. I don't advise this.

[Scrapfe]

My first batch of 25 store bought chicks did pretty good in my bathtub...

LOL, The funniest poultry thing I ever saw was a clutch of ducklings hatched under a hen.

The first water they encountered, into the drink went the ducklings. Old mother hen was going trough some changes trying to call her "Chicks" out of the "deadly" (for chicks) water. As much as she desired to go into the water to "rescue" the ducklings, hen could just not make herself roll up her pants legs and wade in herself.

[Newbee13]

For a quick and dirty chick brooder I use a galvanized stock tank, 2x2x5 with one or two heat lamps suspended into the top. 40 degrees and above 1 heat amp, below 40- 2 heat lamps.