Baby chicks are absolutely adorable! They do require some equipment to get started. A list of supplies can be found HERE. Overall, the supplies are food, water, shelter, and bedding. Today, I'm going to talk about my brooder (shelter) and tell you about my set-up. At the end I'll include pictures of the cute fluff-butts when they first came home.
The Brooder
A brooder is the chicks home before they go outside into the coop. A brooder should have good ventilation and be protected from drafts. There are many kinds of brooders. The most common brooders are plastic bins, feed troughs, and baby pools. I took a less conventional path and used a dog play pen. Regardless of the brooder, I highly recommend one that has a lid. Many people who use the troughs or tubs will craft a lid together. The nice thing about mine is it comes with a lid that zips into place.
Size doesn't always matter. However, in the case of chick brooders and chicken spaces, size matters. For chicks, a brooder should be 1 sq foot per bird. Having an appropriate size will prevent fighting and pecking. It will also help with the odor as the chicks get bigger and start producing more waste. It also allows you to easily add their food, waterer, and heating source without causing cramped quarters.
Bedding
Inside the brooder, you do need to have bedding for the chicks. The first few days, the chicken waste isn't too bad, but as they grow, more waste comes along. A lot of people use pine chips from day old chicks until the chicks go outside. Some start with newspaper and then move into pine shavings. Others, like me use paper towels and then move to pine shavings.
Being a first time chicken mom, I read a lot. Maybe too much. I read about all the things that can go wrong when raising chicks. I choose to start with paper towels for a couple of reasons. In my research, I found sometimes baby chicks will eat their bedding. This isn't the worse, but if they have not fully established and/or recognized the food as food; they may fill up on bedding instead. This could cause some growth and development issues. Pine shavings does provide excellent absorbency. I decided it would be safe to not risk them eating too much pine shavings and not enough food; I decided against pine shavings for first bedding. I also read about splay leg which occurs if the chick is on too slick of bedding or uneven bedding. Its where their legs are spread apart and causes difficulty walking. Newspaper does become very slick for chicks which can cause the splay legs. Wanting to avoid this, I opted to not use news papers.
I saw several people using paper towels, so that's what I settled on. I used paper towels for the first two weeks. I changed the bedding nightly when I gave them water and food. The nice thing about the paper towels, it was easy clean. The down fall, once they start practicing scratching, the paper towel bedding gets torn up pretty easy. Paper towels get pretty stinky when dirtied. So, you really will want to switch to pine shavings after the chicks are a couple of weeks old.
Food and Water
Food and water will also be in the brooder with the chicks. I purchased chick food and water containers. They are small and I do clean them out daily and restock daily. You can find these at any brick and mortar feed store as well as Amazon. I personally ordered from Amazon. Once the chicks go outside, I'll purchase larger ones. Keep in mind, pine shavings and waste will get into both the water and the feeder. I typically clean both of these out as needed. Most often, twice daily.
Heat Source
The last requirement to be in the brooder is a heating source. Chicks need help maintaining their body temperature. Since they can't run to mother hen to warm up as needed, you now have to provide the heat. There are two main heating options. These tend to be a little bit of a heated conversation in Facebook groups (did you see what I did there?). I will briefly touch on the options, I do recommend you do your research and choose the one that works best for you.
The two main heating options are a brooder plate or a heat lamp. The heat lap is hung above the brooder providing heat for the area under the lamp. It gets moved upward to lower the temperature of the brooder. This is done if the chicks seem too hot and as the chicks get older and need less heat. The brooder plate is placed into the brooder and has radiate heat under the plate. The chicks slip in and out of the heat by going under the plate. It mimics a mother hen. You raise up the plate as the chicks age to decrease the heat. It does not heat the entire brooder, just the area under the plate.
I used the brooder plate over the heating lamp. I liked the ease of the plate and how it mimics a mother hen. I did not want to worry about the fire hazard a heat lamp would create or worry about over heating my chicks. I did purchase my brooder plate from Amazon but these are found easily at feed stores and where chicks are sold.
Wow, I had a lot to say about the brooder. If you are still here, congrats on ready this far! My chicks are now, almost 4 weeks old. Time has gone fast. I love watching them as they grow. I'll post some fun with chicks pictures later. However, I did want to share a picture of them when they came home. They were hard to photograph in the beginning. So here is a photo of 4 of the 6 chicks.
That's my brooder set-up and the baby chicks. Do you have chicks or looking to get chicks? What do you use for brooder? I'd love to hear about your brooder set-up. Please share in a comment.
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