How To Set Up a Chicken Brooder

So you've made the best decision of your life to get baby chicks and start raising your own farm fresh eggs. Now what? I'm going to share with you how I set up my chicken brooder when I bring new chicks into our flock.

What is a brooder? A brooder is a safe and warm place to keep your chicks until they are ready to care for themselves. You will want to use a brooder whether you have an existing flock or these are your first chicks. If you have an existing flock, the chicks won't be able to defend themselves against the pecking order, and they could get seriously hurt or killed. In Maine especially, your chicks also have to have all of their feathers in order to be put outside due to the harsh weather we have. If you're reading this from a different state, spring isn't actually spring here in Maine. We get blizzards in April and sometimes even May (if you're feeling bad for us Mainers, you should).

To set up your brooder, you will need the following supplies:

• A tote or bin that has a cover

• Pine shavings

• 2 1-qt screw-on poultry jars (I get these ones from Tractor Supply)

• A 1-qt screw on water base (also from Tractor Supply)

• A 1-qt screw on feeder base (can you tell we really like Tractor Supply?)

• Good quality medicated chick starter crumbles

• Heat lamp and bulbs

Optional to get is a wooden dowel for a roost and chicken wire for the cover. Below are pictures of how we have our roost installed and how we use the chicken wire for the top. They like to roost at night, and it teaches them young that it is their sleeping place.

To start, you have to make sure your chickens have some type of air flow/oxygen for their brooder. If you don't want to use the chicken wire method, you'll have to drill lots of holes in the cover.

Then, you put your pine shavings in the tote. You want a good inch or 2 thick of bedding in there. These shavings need to be changed at least once a week depending on how many chicks you have. We currently have 8 in ours, and I change and clean out the bedding twice a week. While your chicks are growing their feathers, they need a source of warmth. Set up your heat lamp over half of their brooder. You don't want it over the whole thing, because they need a place to escape the heat should they get hot. A lot of chicks die because they are overheated. Clip it to a chair, desk, windowsill. Anything you have. Make sure it's not too far from the top of the brooder but not super close either. Here is a picture of my heat lamp. We have it clipped to a bar stool next to the tote.

Fill up your feeder and water jar, stick them in the brooder, and you're all ready for your babies! We have two feeders in our tote, because once they really start to grow, they go through a LOT of feed, and I don't have to fill it as often if I have two.

There are a ton of different ways to set up a brooder; this is what we've found most convenient for us. Find what's best for you and stick with it! You want something that is going to be easily accessible when you have to clean it out. I lug our tote right out to the woods and dump all of the shavings out.

I hope you find this helpful and that you are ready for your little chicks to arrive.