Life at Cobb Creek Farm - Brooder huts and chicks

Hello Family and Friends!

I have been remiss on writing but never worry, I haven't forgotten and have been taking some photos to illuminate my lack of description and creativity. Since I am mainly working with chickens and chicken related projects I figured that I would start there. (More on chickens, cattle, and sheep to come)

The chicks (Cornish Cross)  arrive in the mail and we pick them up first thing in the morning from the post office. To start out there life with us we keep them in a brooder house for the first three weeks where they can stay dry and warm out of the weather. After their three week stay they then head out to the field shelters or "hoop coops" where we raise them until they are ready to be processed at about 7-9 weeks of age. These broilers grow fast. Below is the process that we went through building the brooders and some of the elements of our chicken process. Starting this week we will be raising 600+ broiler chickens a week - we were doing 600+ every other week. To meet the increase in numbers we had to build two more brooder houses for a total of six houses.

Each of the brooders are 12'x12' inside dimensions and the peak is at about 7'. We framed the brooders in up in the barn out of the elements and painted them there with a cheep primer. After the primer dried we loaded them onto a trailer and drove them down to brooder alley as I have taken to calling it.

Once we got the upper roofs attached and the seams caulked and flashed we put up chicken wire over the lower roof portion as the lower part of the roof opens up to let air flow in during the hot summer days. This time of year we have them sealed down with some fiberglass along the edges to block the cold north wind. Also the two windows next to the door and the back wall open up for added ventilation and day light.

The upper roof over hangs by several inches to make sure the drip edge doesn't flow in and soak the chicks.

  

Everything up but the doors. It is almost good enough to be the new apprentice housing! Time for me to move in!
















The "Ohio" brooder box. This is a 4'x6' box that sits several inches off the floor. We then have two red heat lamps, one at each end where you see the light fixtures. On top of the box we spread a bag of peat moss to act as a bit of insulation on the top that we can then scoop off as needed in wet spots. The temperature with the heat lamps combined with the body heat coming off 330+ chicks can easily exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Even when we were having ambient temperatures in the low 20s here, the temp under their brooder box was in the 90s.

One thing that I failed to take a picture of was that we ran a sub power feed from the main breaker panel to the back of the first brooder house in the row of six and then ran power to each of the other houses. We are able to plug in several lights or fans as needed.

The water system is pretty straight forward. It is all gravity feed. Outside we have a 5 gallon bucket sitting on a pedestal with a hose running into the hut feeding a 2"x10' PVC tube that we taped with water nipples every couple of inches. Then we attach the water system to an adjustable hanger. As the peat moss bedding gets deeper after each batch of chicks and as the chicks grow we can raise and lower the water system. The area just under the water pipe gets wet more then any other place in the brooder. Additionally, the chicks lay a good amount of their nutrient load here. Hence why we have extra peat on the brooder box to spread and help lock in the nutrients and "absorb" the smell. When well managed these brooders don't smell repugnant at all. If they smell bad, we are doing something wrong.

Grady's pick-up loaded down with a ton of sphagnum moss, literally. We use
a lot of it around here. "Is that strapped down?" you ask. Nope. However,
the pallet was well shrink wrapped and we still drove safely home from Lowe's. 

Which brings me to sphagnum peat moss. We use peat moss as our bedding material for the chickens. It absorbs water and holds nutrients well keeping the chicks dry and warm. After each batch of chicks we till up the bedding to mix in their manure load and then add more bags of moss. As the bedding gets deeper it actually starts to compost in place somewhat making the bedding warm to the touch. Once we get to the point that we need to clean out the brooders, which hasn't happened yet, this peat moss will make some amazing garden soil building material. I am excited to see how it does come spring time.

These little guys venture out from the comfort of the mass under the brooder
box to get a drink, eat, and explore their new home.

Once the chicks arrive we count out 330+ into each brooder - I say plus as there is a certain percent the hatchery sends extra that they expect to die out of each batch - and we monitor the chicks as they drink out of the bell waters and run around checking out their new digs. They will drink out of these for the first day or so before going over to the PVC water system. Also after the first week we put the tubes back on the feed trays to accommodate the increased daily food needs and provide starter and grower grit in a separate dispenser depending on their age.

That is the brooders and a little on the first three weeks of our meat birds. Until next time,

Ciao!

Little Farmer thinks this brooder house is ready for chicks!