Brooder How TO

With chick days upon us, I thought I would do a blog post talking about how to set-up a brooder.

A $5 rubbermaid tub or a horse water trough works great! As they get bigger, I would recommend throwing a little hardware cloth over the top to keep the chicks in. About week 2-3, they are starting to try out their wings and fly out.

First, the important thing for chicks is warmth. Chicks on average need to be between 90-95 degrees F, gradually decreasing in temp as they grow. You do this, by being able to vary the height of the heat lamp.

The brooder pictured below was used for about a week ad a half, they started to outgrow this, so we needed to expand it. The heat lamp was positioned a little towards the back to offset the heat and we put down cardboard and feed bag material to get their feet off the bottom grate.

When setting up your brooder, you also want to make sure that they can get out of the heat. The chicks can over heat, so you want to give them enough room to move out from under it.

The brooder above was a $10 kiddie pool from walmart for our ducklings. They grow VERY fast and need a bit more room than chicks. They also don't fly as well, so they don't need as high sides. You can see we also added a dish of water they could splash around in and play. We also had a section of hay bedding apart from the shavings so they could dry off better.

Brooders ca be as expensive or as cheap as you want, the big things are heat, food, water.