Brooder is a fun word. I have become more enamored with words. There are specific meanings to specific word and while many words are similar each word has a meaning. Affect and Effect, Their, There, They’re you get the point.

A chicken brooder is a house for chicks. Usually having either a Hen or heat source, bedding, food and water. They can literally be anything. Some people use metal watering troughs, sheds, wagons, boxes etc etc.

When considering chick brooders there are a couple of things we kept in mind. 1 being cost. We are not sure if chicks are a long term project for us so we did not want to get to extravagant. Not that any of the images above are extravagant.

2. Space. We have 5 acres outside and a three car garage plus two barns. All of those spaces only the garage is climate controlled in the winter and close enough to the house to check on the birds regularly. This puts the space that the brooder takes up at a premium. So we wanted something we can tuck away when not in use.

3. Functionality. Cheap and Compact are great things but it has to actually do the job. We want the chicks to be safe (should a predator get in the garage). We want them to be warm and comfy we we went to a variation on the “Panel” brooder.

We started with a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood. Cut into 4 equal sized panels.

Then we cut two 3/4 inch sections half way down each panel using a 3/4 inch chisel to remove the cut out section.

This leaves you with 4 panels with two sections cut out half way down the panels that can be interlocked to create a box.

Now we have the basic brooder. You can simply put some wood shavings/bedding in the box or you can add some other items. We made a lid to go on it and with wholes and 1/2 inch hardware cloth covering the openings

We elected to go with Premier 1 supply chick heater plate. There are a couple of reasons for this choice. The obvious concern is heat source on wood shavings. A heat lamp tends to dry out the wood shavings making combustion easier. A heat plate applies heat downward onto the chicks more efficiently thus using less electricity as a lamps heat is a by product of the light. Resulting in less energy per unit of heat then a lamp. There is also the space that is being heated. The heat plate applies it more directly to the chicks then a heat lamp but also the plate is sized to the brood size we expect to have so the plate only heats the chicks under it while they are in contact with the plate. Setting the plate low enough will help prevent the chicks from piling on one another.

I did add a lamp for some light as per suggestion from Murray McMurray Hatchery. So the chicks will not pile up on one another and suffocate their brood-mates. Which would run contrary to what we wish to achieve.

Doug