The Brooder Coop

Remember the new additions?  Well after the Hubby and Youngest daughter went off to pick up some last minute supplies for Easter Dinner we ended up with another 8 babies in the tank.  Lets just say it got crowed fast.

Really after seven years of chickens now if there is one thing I have learned it is they just grow from cute fluffy babies to awkward looking teenager chickens way to fast. So this weekend we moved those awkward looking teenagers up to the brooder coop.  Just look at all the room they have to grow now.
So this is great now, the chicks are happy to have room to move.  You can't tell by the photo because they are all scared and huddled up from the move but 2 days later they have adjusted well.  That's not the only reason its great, in the brooder coop they will also get introduced and be able to adjust to the adult chickens we already have.  And its great for us too as our house no longer smells like chicken poo.

Thinking about chickens for your future?  Maybe you have them already and want to add more and aren't sure what to do next or perhaps you are just wondering what the brooder coops even is.  Just keep reading so you don't have to learn this lesson the hard way like we did.  Obviously we did not always have the brooder coop or this story wouldn't be quite as interesting but I'm sure glad we do now.

Building of the Chicken Coop 2011

I had to do some digging (way back to May of 2011) for the coop photo but as you can see the brooder part of the coop was not always there and neither were the goats, ducks or pigs.  Funny how quickly just getting a few chickens made things change so much here. 

Even more digging for this.  March 2011 our first chickens and OMGosh, look how little the kids were <3

Our first year as chicken owners was a start from scratch year.  Back then we had the chicks in a stock tank in the house and that's where they stayed till we were able to get the coop built.  Then they had their grow up time in the coop till they were big enough and it was warm enough for them to be outside.  We learned the hard way on a lot of it, like the fact that we did not have access to the run from outside and we crawled in and out the chicken door more then once, that was quickly remedied though.   And to this day we still wish we had made the height of the run about another foot taller so we don't have to slouch to be in there but it all works out.

The chickens lived happily in their coop and run and then year two comes along and getting more new chicks happens.  Even with the big coop completed, dang it if we still had no place to put chicks again once they grew too big for the stock tank, sheesh. We had a nice coop but it was now full of grown chickens.
This year we were lucky as we had already added to the chickens run for more space and even added a door to access the run from outside the coop.  We just took some extra fencing panels and a big pipe and made a makeshift brooder area for the babies.  Well we though we were lucky but then just like every spring here Mother Nature decided we needed freezing cold and snow so the chicks were moved back inside our house more then once.  We def. learn the hard way here.

That year was the end of no room for chicks nonsense.  That summer we added on to the coop.  And not just a little addition but basically a whole extra coop size was added.  The chickens loved the new space as we left it open till next chick season came along.  Then we were able to take half the new addition and turn it into a brooding area complete with private run area for the new chicks leaving the other half extra space for the new chickens we were again adding.
Of course it wasn't all presto and done, we learned a few lesson there too.  Like the plastic (in the photo belwo) seemed like a good idea that year to keep the chicks warm but honestly with the heat lamp, the sun in the windows that plastic made it a bit too warm so we opted out of that quickly.  Now we just enclose the chicks in metal roofing to limit the draft on them and it is easily removed as the days get warmer and they get bigger. 
The new brooder also allowed the chicks interaction with the grown chickens making the introduction day a lot easier in the pecking department.  Since we had already fenced in more run area we also took and divided that up so the chicks would have their own run away from the adult chickens as well which can be opened back up once they adjust to each other.

looking into the brooder from inside the adult chicken part of the coop

We might have to learn it the hard way but these last few years have been an easy transition from the stock tank into the brooder coop for chicks.  Maybe we just made it too easy as now we can't stop ourselves from getting more chicks every year.