Easy DIY Chick Brooder YOU CAN BUILD!

hey guys my name is angela and welcome  back to our channel today we're going to   be doing something a little bit different we  are going to make an easy diy chicken brooder   a couple of weeks ago actually it's been  about two weeks we got some day-old chicks   hoping we could stick them underneath  our two broody hens and that they would   take them as their own but that didn't  pan out the hens did not want them oh everything looks good for now we'll  give it a couple of days and see how it sitting goes so we are stuck brooding some chicks  for the next six to eight weeks   we do have a smaller i guess regular sized  storage tote that we have them in right now   but they are quickly outgrowing that we  want to give them some more room to run   play whatever they do so we decided to go  bigger we have this 64 gallon tote here   it's like mega what we're gonna do is work on  the lid and make it a little more chick friendly this is a big one we're first gonna start by  cutting out the inside and we're going to be   replacing that with chicken wire so i have here  our oscillating tool and a half moon cutter on   it this is a pretty awesome tool if you haven't  used one it's good for a lot of cutting things   and especially for me because i kind of am scared  of cutting things and this one's not bad so i'm   going to go ahead and start cutting around a spot  big enough so it can get some good airflow one of   the main reasons we chose this tote was for this  lid it kind of has a waffle pattern on top and   it's designed in a way that it's going to be nice  rigid and strong even taking the center out of it well that was loud and obnoxious but it  is over and it cut out this piece really   well i'm now going to use my little  sanding disc to clean up the edges   before we prep the area to put in the chicken wire so i'm holding down the chicken wire  and seeing where the best places for   the zip ties are going to go and i'm going  to make a mark with my pencil that way i can   line it up and see where to drill  the holes at so i have a quarter   inch drill bit right here and i'm going to  go ahead and go around and drill my holes hold this this way either way i'm finding my holes and i  have four inch zip ties here i'm just pulling it too keeping a  little bit of extra on the outside do   so now that it's all attached i can go ahead  and push the excess up in that little recess   and then i'm going to cut off the excess  and snap the little ends off of the zip ties now it's time to clean this  up a little bit by snipping   all the ends off the zip ties and i  believe we might be done with the lid ha ha that part's done hey that looks pretty nice so we're gonna do a little something extra  for the chicks because they probably do have   another five or six weeks in this brooder  we're going to make them a small roost   perch whatever you want to call it so that  they can start getting used to it okay we have some scrap pieces of plywood  here that we drilled holes in to match   and then we have two little  dowels i think these are half inch so we have two perches here mainly for stability  because if you only put one in a triangle this is   going to just be able to move all over the place  and it gives them something more to play with so   next i'm going to go ahead and put everything  together since all the construction is done   i want to add in some fine shavings about  two inches worth and then put in all the   feed water that sort of thing for the chicks  i am using fine pine shavings so you can get   at your local feed and seed i like the fine  shavings better because it tends to break down   quicker and you don't have a big pile of coarse  shavings in the yard if you dump yours in   your yard somewhere and also if you compost it  will break down quicker with the fine shavings   so most people might keep their brooder their  chicks in a garage or a barn we don't really   have either so we're going to move them into my  soap shack which has heat and water in there so   it'll be easier to take care of them in the  meantime they have been in our boys bedroom   which we've been renovating but they need to  move out because we have more to do in there   so we're going to go ahead and pick up and take  them up to the soap shack and finish it out so we're in the soap shack now and i've got  everything together i wanted to show you we use   a heating pad that's made for small animals  and it doesn't get too hot or anything we use   that for the chicks instead of a heat lamp it's  just preference mainly we will put a link below   if you're interested i have to say it's a  lot nicer and you have better peace of mind   knowing that it's probably not going to catch on  fire one reason that this is great to have the   open top like this is those chicks create a lot of  moisture and we have seen the inside of their tote   totally condensated on the sides or whatever it  was just it was foggy in there so this is going   to allow a lot more air flow and breathing  room we didn't know it but a benefit of   using the chicken wire is your electric cords  fit through it so it'll help a lot with this so these little boogers are about two weeks  old and they are already getting pretty big   so i think they're gonna really love this  new space that we're putting them in um   they are golden comets and  they are all female hopefully oh so it may look a little cramped in here and  it kind of is but it does have wheels on it so   on a nice day if i need to come in here and work  i can always wheel them outside let them enjoy   some outside time and have all my space back  so it may not be the best solution for everyone   but it is for us because they were in  the boys bedroom which is being redone   well guys thanks for coming along  leave us some comments below we'd   love to read them and otherwise we'll see  you guys next time on the homestead bye do you

Channel: Green Acre Homestead

Views: 50,887

Keywords: green acre homestead, homesteading, diy, green acres, sam and angela, diy chicken brooder, diy chick brooder, chick brooder, brooder, best brooder, cheap chicken brooder, thermo-peep heated pad, thermo-peep, chicken heat pad, chick heat pad, heating pad for chickens, homestead chickens, backyard chickens, golden comet, comet chickens, brooding chicks, raising chickens, small homestead, self reliance

Id: 78-JmqbK-Gg

Length: 14min 22sec (862 seconds)

Published: Mon May 17 2021