Week 1 - The Chicks Are Here

DAY 1


I got the call from Pine Pride Hatchery this last Tuesday (3/27) that my 50 Red Star Ranger chicks were ready to be picked up. I really wasn't expecting them for a few more days so I was a little unprepared. Since I was in the middle of a construction project in the garage, I decided that the brooder box needed to be moved into the shed. This was a good decision in hind sight since it is secure and draft free, no loud noises like power saws, no paint or car fumes, etc. Moving that box by myself however was no small feat. Thank God for the wheels that got it 90% of the way. I added pine shavings, set up the feeder and watering jar, and turned on the heat lamps.

I picked up the chicks from the hatchery mid afternoon and the drive back home was uneventful except for some occasional peeping. My wife helped me put the chicks into the brooder box, one at a time and gently dipping their beaks into the water trough. I have read that this helps them to know where the water is. Of course my wife took about 5 minutes with each chick giving them lots of love and cooing over them. Telling her that we were going to be slaughtering and eating them in 12 weeks didn't seem to matter much to her. Just wait till they are big enough to start making a huge mess and then we will see how cute they are. Anyhow here are a few pictures from day one.

Okay so they are pretty cute now. But I know whats coming soon. Poop, and lots of it. 

DAY 3


The chicks are doing well. No dead or sickly chicks, and the temperature must be good cause they aren't bunched up or keeping away from the heat lamps. I cannot believe how active they are, running back and forth from the heat lamp to the food and water. I also put some branches in for them to climb over and to roost on. They are very curious little guys. They love to peck the plastic thermometer (probably because it has a large red indicator) and seem fascinated by it. I am also amazed how at just a couple days old they instinctually act just like my adult hens, preening themselves, scratching the ground, backing up and looking down for something to eat, etc. I could swear that they are bigger too. Most are starting to develop their wing feathers.

DAY 6


This morning I found one dead chick. I expect to lose about 5 chicks so this is no surprise, but what is surprising is that we haven't lost any until today. I think its my fault though because I had to go and monkey with things yesterday. I decided to put the heat lamps on a chain so that I can adjust the height easier than with them sitting on the lid, especially when the lid gets opened. Since they seemed to be doing so well and not staying under the lamps very long, I removed the second lamp. It was a really nice warm day too so I opened the window on the shed. Well last night a storm rolled through and I forgot to shut the window, so they probably got too cold and one of them bought the farm. I put the second heat lamp back up this morning.

LESSON LEARNED: Too hot is better than too cold. If the chicks can move away from the heat lamp, leave them alone.

Also they are going through more food now. This morning the feeder was empty. As soon as I filled it all 49 chicks were going like gangbusters trying to eat. I realized that I need another feeder. I added another small feeder until the frenzy was over. I will be buying another large feeder this afternoon, and I guess I need to check and fill the feeder more than once a day.

The chicks are getting much bigger too. The wing feathers are filling in and now I can see tail feathers starting to come in as well. This big guy is a good example.

Brooder Box Build

Here is the brooder box that I built for the chicks to live in for the first 3-4 weeks. The purpose of the brooder is to keep the chicks warm (as a brooding hen would do in nature) with a heat lamp, which will be suspended over the chicken wire lid on the left half of the box. The right side of the box will give the chicks a place to be away from the heat lamp if they get too warm, and will contain a feeder and water jar. The whole box will have about 3" of pine shavings on the floor for the litter. I painted it with Kilz primer for now so that it won't rot or swell and I can clean it out easier.

The materials, dimensions and design were mostly a product of what I had laying around. I wanted to make something that would be completely self contained rather than just a border on the floor. This will allow me to move it if necessary and not have to worry about curious dogs, children, etc.

The one consideration that I had to make was how big to make the box. I determined that 1/2 sq. ft. per chick should be sufficient for the first 4 weeks or so. With 50 chicks that means 25 square feet, which is 5 foot square. I had several pieces of 1/2" OSB about 3' x 6' from window cutouts on a construction job, so I ended up making the box 3' wide, 6' long and 16" deep. That's only 18 square feet so I hope there is enough room by the end of 3 weeks. Hopefully the chicks will feather out quickly.

Notice that I placed close-able vents on the right side of the box for added ventilation. I hinged the cutouts so that they can be closed up if it is too drafty. Again this is the product of what I had laying around. These are some soffit vents that I found in the shed and I have been saving those wooden knobs forever so it was time to use them.

The chicken wire on top of the lids was the leftovers from a 2' wide roll so that dictated the lid cutout to be about 20" (enough to overhang and staple the chicken wire 2" on each side). I didn't have any pieces of OSB left over that were big enough to make the lids out of so, I had to piece it together and put 1x2 pine braces underneath the joints (glued and screwed). Even if they were out of one piece I still probably would have braced it because OSB isn't very strong (and I over build everything, its a disease.)

I did  have to buy all the hinges and some other hardware. Unfortunately nobody seems to make hinges the way I wanted them. My lids lay on top of the box so an inside hinge would not provide enough clearance to open it. The wood is only 1/2"  thick so I couldn't use a piano hinge between the lid and wall without adding additional material to have something to screw it to. The strap hinges that I used work fine on the outside, but the screw holes were too close to the hing point as I needed an extra1/2" to miss the lid. Thus I ended up drilling another whole (for the screw below the empty hole) in each hinge. And the screws that came with the hinges are too long and needed to be replaced with some 1/2" long screws.

My father in his infinite wisdom keeps telling me to "put wheels on it". I keep telling him that it is a "table top" box that doesn't need wheels as it won't ever be on the ground and that it is light enough that I can move it by myself. Well I guess it could just as easily sit on the ground as it does on a table or saw-horses. But now that I have added lids and hardware, it is getting a lot heavier. Add pine shavings and 50 chicks and I think it will become a permanent fixture. Maybe I do need to add legs and/or some wheels. The real question is, where do I store this monstrosity when I am not using it?

[UPDATE]
Okay, so maybe wheels were a good idea. After moving this monstrosity in and out of and all around the garage every time I needed to build some thing in there I decided that dragging it around on saw horses was way worse than admitting defeat and adding some wheels. Since I still want the bottom to be flat I just built a large "movers dolly" for it to ride on. So far it works great.

Here is the finished product (sitting on the wheel dolly) with everything except pine shavings, and chicks.