$19 Chicken Brooder

When the little chicks are hatched here at WIndhaven Farm… they first go into a big 20 gallon aquarium with a good fitting screen lid to discourage any felines from bothering the babies. Once they are a bit bigger, they go to our big blue tub brooder with the side window that Maggie made so we can all comfortably watch Chicken TV! We love it.

But it’s apparent that we are overflowing the big blue tub quickly and it’s too cold to put them out in the barn or the little coop. What to do???

Why that means, me and my trusty side kick Maggie swing into action and begin to determine how best to pull off a new farm project with little cash and easy construction methods. I will admit, we are getting better and better at our design and carpentry skills! You just have to learn something after trying project after project!

I knew I wanted something durable. Cheap. Sturdy. Roomy. Heat trapping. Cheap. Easy to build. Something that utilized found objects… that would be cool too. OSB to the rescue!

Now, it would have been great to have wood laying around the place. But we are sorely lacking in those kinds of freebie things. I’m trying to build up my stash, I really am. Whenever I go to like Lowes or any lumber place, I pick up a few boards, 2 x 4s stuff like that. Just because. You can’t have too many boards around a farm, I’m totally convinced. It’s important. I think if I ever get a decent windfall, I will go with a trailer and just buy up boards and plywood and posts and stuff like that. And store them neatly in my garage or barn, ready for when the idea or need strikes!

But I must admit, I like our local lumber yard down the road some in Pioneer, Ohio. I like the older gentleman that runs the place, he’s always smiling and listens intently to my ideas and has good suggestions to make things even better sometimes. This time he even gave me a whole mess of cut offs of good lumber for Maggie and I’s fancy sign business we’re working on. (That’s another story! Soon!) Free! Nice lumber pieces! He said anytime I want to come down, he’ll save them for me. How cool is that?

Anyway…. I got two sheets of 7/16″ OSB board. (That’s Oriented Strand Board) It’s a nice strong bonded board that is made up of junk wood and glued together… very nice and strong stuff. $19 total. And the best thing… he cut them for me with the big rip saw. I hate cutting large things, I’m just not that good at it. I can do it, but still, his saw is so much more accurate.

I had him cut one of the boards down the middle the long way to give me two sides at 24 inches wide and 8 feet long. The second board I had him cut into 4ths… so I had 4 pieces that were 24″ x 48″ Perfect. No waste. No cutting for me.

Now to be perfectly honest, you do need 2 – 2 x 4s by 8 feet long. Around here, those are about $2 each. Now, seeing that I am a member of the 2 x 4 of the week club…. haha… I had two already. But if I had to buy them, it would make the brooder $23 total. Still not a bad price for sure. I cut one of the 2 x 4s into 4 pieces, each 24 inches long. And the second one, I cut in half, 4 feet long. That’s it.

We just screwed the 2 x 4 x 24″ pieces to the sides of the long pieces of OSB. Then we screwed 2 of the 24 x 48 inch OSBs inside of those corner braces.

Now you might ask, why didn’t you put it on the outside of the 2 x 4 corner? Because then the side door/covers wouldn’t have as much of the edge to rest on and might fall in. This way gives us a nice sturdy inside rail to rest the top on.
And we used the cut in half 2 x 4 on either end, 24 inches in, so that the other OSB pieces would have something to lay against and not just fall into the brooder. They also help to stabilize the sides and keeps the brooder nice and rigid. I had this old tool handle that I got in a trash pile, so I cut that to 4 foot and we screwed it in the brooder, about 8″ from the floor so the babies could practice roosting. They really like that feature for sure!

We used a couple of old door hinges on either end to secure the lids. These are for access to food and water and also to be able to clean out the brooder. We took a whole bunch of cardboard boxes and opened them up flat to lay on the concrete floor. They will just add a little insulation under the tarp to help keep the chicks from being too cold. Free insulation, can’t beat that. We had an old tarp, that was just about a foot too short, darn it, but still, it worked pretty well. We laid it over the cardboard and then tightened it up on the outside and just stapled it in place. Just to keep it from moving around as the little chicks got better at scratching. I’ll probably keep my eye out for a 6 x 10 tarp… that would be perfect!

In the 4 foot by 4 foot opening, in the middle, we just stretched some chicken wire over it, so that we can have an observation area. I believe that in the night, we’ll lay down some rugs or maybe some foil back insulation that we have. Just make a safe opening for the heat lamp to shine down and warm up the area. One of the things that I wanted to make sure in my design, was that the chicks were safe from drafts as well as making it an easy to warm enclosure. All the while we worked, the temperature was a nice comfortably 65 – 70 degrees. I think we will add one more heat light as a backup as well as to bring the whole brooder up to a nice consistent temperature, even in the cold night air. We will be checking on them all night long as we test out the brooder.

Oh boy, did they love that big open space! They all ran around and flapped their little wings, practicing flying and leaping on the roost stick. Of course, they turned into little ninja chickens and began drop kicking each other and just being ornery. I guess because it was a new space, they had to restablish their pecking order! Crazy little dudes.

One of the BEST things is that we were able to use a big girl bell waterer into the brooder! Yeah! No more 17 zillion refills a day! And we used a couple of the cut off lumber pieces to raise it up off the floor of the brooder. I hope this means they will keep it a little cleaner. And we were able to add a big feed bowl, so that they can have food all day long without us having to refill it 4 or more times a day. We scattered a little crack corn all over in the shavings and they were having a ball, scratching and digging for the goodies. Maggie is going to make a few little dangling clips so we can add lettuce or other treats to the clips and watch them jump and tackle the treats. I think next time I get to town, I will stop and buy them a little box of crickets…. that should be very amusing to watch them stalk and hunt real prey! We love chicken enrichment here!

Right now, we just raised up the swing for the winter and it’s making a great hanging point for the heat lamps. Ultimately, the plan is to move the brooder out to the poultry barn where we hope to have out big chicken breeding outfit set up. Maggie and I just adore our birds and want to raise the Marans and our crossbreeds to the public. We’ve had several people ask already. And see many people in Craigslist and such looking for nice home grown local birds.

Ratchet and Maggie find the new brooder to be fun and entertaining! I’m certain that we could easily use it for our chicken nuggets in the spring, as well as any of our own hatchlings. Perhaps in the spring we will set up another one, if need be. It was super easy and took us only about 2 hours max. If we get a nice warm day, we’ll paint it with something fun from our stash of paints!

We’ve already set up chicken watching observation chairs… and spent a good bit of time watching our little chicks totally enjoy their huge new home! We put in some hay for them to play in and to help keep a little heat in and they were not sure what to do with it at first! But it didn’t take them too long and they were digging and scratching in it like old pros!

Hope you like our cheap chicken brooder! I think it combines a lot of the nice features that I found from others and hopefully will keep our little flock comfy and cosy! We will probably add another light, just to keep it nice and warm and also to be a back up in case one might fail in the night. I think this design would work well with other animals as well, like bunnies or guinea pigs. Perhaps even puppies! Well, small puppies…