The Brooder
The baby chicks were beyond adorable. The grandkids couldn’t wait to name our first farm animals!
We all gathered in the large garage type shed, in the backyard, where we had the brooder.
Brooder
1. An enclosure or other structure, usually heated, used for raising chickens or fowl.
2. Chicks have to be kept at around 100 degrees until they get their feathers (that takes weeks)
Our brooder was an extra large tote, with a heat lamp attached to the wall over the top.
Naming the Chicks
The original plan of one chick for each grandkid, had multiplied. (chicken math has only begun) There were 4 chicks each now, plus Lucy’s 4 from home, bringing the total to 20!
Learning that handling and holding the chicks would help tame them, we let the kids hold them often.
One by one the kids picked up a chick and called off a name. Quickly realizing the chaos, I grabbed a piece of trim board and a dull pencil and starting jotting down the names.
Lucy:
Marshmallow
Chance
Dots
Shadow
Drew:
Pattern
Star
Bright
Equal
Aiden:
Goldie
Danny
Tiger
Brownie
Molly:
Blackie
Pinky
Sparkle
JoJo
Teenage Chickens
After watching tons of YouTube videos regarding raising and caring for chickens, we knew they would quickly outgrow the tote.
Our daughter Abbie gave us a dog playpen of sorts, we lined the floor and sides with cardboard and covered the floor with pine chips.
Brooder number two.
The Science Project
So, Lucy decided to hatch some eggs for a science project…seriously?!
Our daughter Emily borrowed an incubator from her school science lab.
One of her co-workers, gave her 12 fertilized eggs to try to hatch.
Each day they had to turn the eggs and keep the incubator at 100 degrees also ensuring the correct humidity.
Weeks went by and nothing happened. Lucy was disappointed…we weren’t, lol!
Finally giving up, Emily decided to go on a long weekend trip…when she got home, you guessed it, two chicks had hatched!
Lucy having to go back to school and Emily back to work teaching…guess who had to take care of the incubator and remaining eggs?
After all the back and forth with the incubator…3 more chicks hatched,
for a total of 5!
Friends …
chicken math is real.
The Grey Shed
Back behind the barn was an 8×12 storage shed. The previous owner had used it for homing pigeons years ago.
Just like everything else on the property the shed was clean as a whisle.
It was divided into 3 sections. General storage, feed storage and a section for the birds to roost.
It would need some renovation to be suitable for chickens, but we could make it work!
Stormy
The grand kids were currently using the grey shed for their “horse barn”.
Pretending the golf cart was their “pick up truck”, they hooked up an old wooden trailer to the back, to carry their horses (aka bicycles).
Two bikes (horses) would be loaded into the wooden trailer and hauled to the horse barn (chicken coop), unloaded and put in their stalls.
Lucy (age 8) popped her head out the door and said, “You guys better not come in here today…Stormy is wound up and she’s bucking like crazy!” hahahahaha!
The Conversion
Ken started tearing out the interior of the grey shed in preparation for the conversion to a chicken coop.
The two doors inside were hand made from premium plywood, with chicken wire for windows.
Even the handles and locks were made from wood.
We saved everything including the 2×4’s and shelving, making a neat pile in the barn.
Red
My job was to paint the coop. Of course, it had to be red!
I would consider myself a “red snob, lol!” What most people would consider red, to me, is orange or burgundy.
The red I love is crisp yet dark…think stop sign, fire truck or little red wagon.
Four stores later, samples in hand, I painted a few strokes on the back of the shed. Finding not any red …but the perfect red! Happy me!
Brooder number three...
We were shocked to see how fast the chickens were growing! They were actually big enough to go into the coop…but it wasn’t done yet.
Finding some old pieces of plywood, we made an enclosure and hung the heat lamp above.
The brooder was more like a room!
The Coop
Drawing the layout on graph paper gave us something to work with. The coop needed two basic requirements: nest boxes, and roosts.
The Nesting Box
Ken had researched different nesting boxes and decided to go with the new “roll away type”
After the hen gets up from laying her egg. The egg rolls down a small incline and catches in a wire container. The eggs are nice and clean also easy to gather.
We have been very happy with the brand we chose.
The Roosts
Chickens sleep on roosts (2×4’s turned sideways) at night …they also poop all night too, lol!
After looking at other chicken owner set ups, we settled on this one.
The first (of many) roost systems we tried.
A couple of our teenage chickens, and behind Lucy and Drew, the 5 chicks that were hatched in the incubator, lol!
The Run
Because we had a pair of hawks that flew over the property, Ken decided we needed to build a covered run next to the coop.
Measuring out an 25×50 foot area that would be attached to the coop, Ken used 7 foot metal t-posts that he pounded in, reinforcing the corners. Stretching 6 ft wire fencing around the perimeter was no easy task!
First time doing any kind of fencing was definitely harder than it seemed on YouTube!
After the fence was up, we strung nylon rope, in a grid across the top of the entire area, from side to side and front to back. Lastly, a huge piece of aviary netting was stretched over the top of the ropes to make a roof for the run.
Using 8 foot wooden posts, as a door frame, Ken built a door for the front of the run. It turned out great!
Below a current picture of the run and coop…with the latest addition, But that’s another story!
Next time, moving chickens to the coop and we have how many roosters ?!
Fondly, Sandy
