in this video i'm going to show you guys how to set up a brooder look i've got it going
i'm going to cover two things one all the supplies that you need and then how to set
it all up so yeah i've turned my heat lamp off for a second because it's so much better lighting like
this and it won't kill them it might actually be a little warm for them but so it won't hurt to take
a little break we're and we're inside so we're at room temperature they are in our dining room
so that way we can keep track of them well let's talk about this first thing this is the brooder i
like to call it the porter brooder this is the big box that you contain them in i contain them in i
use a rubbermaid this is a 40 gallon it's probably two foot by four feet and remember you can put
four chicks per square foot up to three weeks so do that math it's uh eight eight uh square feet
in here so that'll be about 32 chicks till they're about three weeks old till they transition outside
the reason i call this a porter brooder and if you want you could get the similar thing a 40 gallon
thing i drilled holes into the side so i could put the roof on there's a little plastic roof back
here that i could put out on for transport and then that way they can still get air also at night
as they get a little older i don't do the heat lamp i'll actually put leave them in there and
put that lid on at night and maybe that gives them some warmth or some security and then that way
they can still breathe out of these holes to make it portable and the reason i would have it to be
portable is ideally i would take them out during the day right here you take them out into my yard
i have built this door so that this can open and shut and the way i did that is i i sawzalled
a hole into the side of it and then i used these scrap wood on either side as washers
for the bolts to go through and as places to mount hinges stay in there little buddy
and that way i can open and shut this it hinges and it's real nice i'll shut it of course while
they're in here and if i were to take them outside the other thing i would build is a little ramp
to get them out into the grass and then i would have an encaged area here okay preferably caged
roof too so nothing from the air can get them and that way they could get out in nature
they would be out day one with mama in in the grass eating all kinds of stuff
so the second thing i'll cover is well the location of this thing
it's by the light there's a natural light right there and has the indoor lighting so
it's nice i would turn everything off at night and they would have the natural sleep cycle there
um next i'll i'll talk about is the shavings this is pine shavings okay you don't want to use
like hay or or a straw because the manure doesn't fall all the way down and can get on them
so use pine shavings some people may be worried about the aroma of it but there's plenty of open
here they're getting a lot of ventilation so i've never had any problems with that next we
could cover i guess we could cover the heat lamp they they value heat more than anything
else they'll they'll make sure they get warm uh before anything else so they would actually starve
and and and thirst to death before they would uh get cold so they like it about 90 degrees at first
because i'm in that room temperature and it's spring and we don't run we aren't running our area
it's probably it's pretty warm in here so they're okay especially their few minutes the way you can
tell i would know these guys were cold if they started cuddling up together and in fact because
now they've spread out a little bit more since i've turned that light off i'm thinking that light
might be too much because if they're if if they're cuddling up together it's too cold and if they're
they're going around or staying away from the heat lamp and maybe they're being a little lethargic
type thing then it could be too hot um you don't have to get crazy scientific about it or worry too
much about it you could do a temperature you could take a temperature down here um but i think your
main problem is going to be them getting cold and see that's not happening so that heat lamp would
come into play if you were putting a mountain down in a garage or something like that this shaving
is in eight inches i like to do at least eight inches that way i don't have to change it out
they'll scratch and peck and work that manure in there and you shouldn't have to change it
out throughout then the next most important things are this what the waterer and the feeder
i love to use these quartz jar fittings for the waterer and the feeder it's an attachment you can
buy i'll leave the links to all this guys so you can relax just relax i'll leave the links to this
in the description below um i put i do what you call magic water what i like to call magic water
in this court water for the first few rounds and that is per half gallon so i take a half
gallon jar fill it with two two cloves of smashed garlic you can see the little garlic
particles floating around in there maybe what oh beautiful one says pressed garlic excuse me
two pressed uh garlic cloves two tablespoons apple cider vinegar and a half a cup of honey and that's
in a half a gallon and so then i took it from the half a gallon jar and poured it into this
court jar and that way i'll have two cycles of it when this one runs out i'll fill it up and yeah
of course you put water in it i'm sorry beauty is back there keeping me straight she's saying yeah
after you put the mix of the apple cider vinegar the honey and the garlic you you then pour water
into of course i like to do warm water well you need to do warm water so you can mix that honey in
okay that's the water now this feed is special because well not only it's it's attachment
feeder too and this this will accommodate uh these birds easy enough and if you need to you could get
two or upgrade i'm assuming you're not gonna i'm assuming i'm talking to people who are getting 36
birds or less in this situation i have fermented this feed and this is what that looks like guys i
just put the dry feed in there you need to get a starter feed preferably organic or non-gmo
but put your starter feed in a food grade bucket like this and then pour water over it about four
inches what you want to happen is that there no no air get to that feed and that's what allows it to
ferment and it just it's going to help them boost their immune system same thing with this magic
water it helps boost their immune system just gets them off to a really good start it this also lets
their feed go further i mean it it'll increase the efficiency by 15 so what i would do i've already
done it today but what i would do is get a scoop of this and preferably you're going to let this
soak for three days before you need it and if you don't have three days you could put some fermented
something or another in there like pickle juice or kraut juice something like that just to
speed up that process and i'm just i've got the screener a stainless steel screener i've let the
water drain out and then i would just pour this in to the feed pan and notice i didn't let it
this is set up to be an automatic feeder and that works well for dry dry feeds but it would not work
too well for a fermented feed let's talk about our grit now grit is little tiny rocks i like to
go down to the creek and get creek sand and small rocks especially creek sand for these little guys
see these dinos don't have a stomach they have what you call a gizzard so they swallow their
food and then a mussel inside of them grinds up that food with rocks you also notice they don't
have teeth okay they will uh grind that this helps them digest it we've just put it in this little
tiny bowl they're all i've already seen them going into it and getting it and now you'll notice that
this is on something special and this this was a game changer for me putting it on putting the
feeder and the water on this let's call it a dirt trap was a game changer because look
they otherwise they're out here on the on the one half inch wire mesh getting their water and food
and they're not tracking this shaving into the water and food if you just put this the water
and the feeder out on the shaving they're going to track that stuff into it so when they hop up
on here when they when they hop up on this trap the shavings fall down you can see them
just one day how many have fallen down in there and manure so it goes a long way to
keeping this clean if you don't have this i'll tell you how to make it here in a second but if
you don't have it just use a cardboard box that helps now to make this i just got a half inch
wire mesh hardware cloth hardware cloth depends on who you're talking to what they call it
i'll leave a link to it and i staple it onto this homemade frame out of wood i just got on
the farm this is like a one inch by two inch this is like a two by two it's fine just scrap
it together and i sized it according to my pan i think it's a four quart pan and um
i just dug that pan in there see if this were the area i was going for i would have just dug
it out and then i put that pan in there and then i would cover it up with this food trap and then
put the feed and the water on there that thing's just awesome i just can't say enough about that
i think we're almost done here guys i think i'll speak about one more thing this is in the open
and that's cool if you don't have chiddlers and that's cool until they get about three
weeks or not even three weeks old they won't be long before they are jumping up here and that's
fine if they want to get up here and look out have some dinner with us that's nice you like that you
like eating dinner with us sure they do but the problem is they they end up perching like this
yeah holy chicken squat on your kitchen floor that's not good that's misdirected and that's a
pain in the butt to clean up especially if you have chitlers and even more so they get really
bold and they hop down and you got little dinos running all over your kitchen floor and that's
not so much of a problem except there's manure everybody and somebody might get stepped on
the other thing about it being open especially if you have chiddlers is that they'll come and play
with it the gideon he'll he'll throw this mulch into the water he'll grab these if we let gideon
grab one of these it would be like a mice men you know he would have good intentions but he would
actually kill he'd kill this thing okay now just out of being overly friendly and overly excited
so to fix that i created this crate to go over a crate i guess and i don't know what you call
this thing but i sized it it's just custom sized it didn't take that long to make it's half inch
wire mesh on a frame okay there's two there's two bars going across to hold it up and there's
two bars at the end to complete the frame and then two bars on the side i just measured it and
cut it to size and then that way the dinos jump don't jump out and the chitlers don't grab in
and it's the best of both worlds and everybody's safe and everybody's happy
now when you go to put them in whether you're getting them out of a box out of the us postal
service or you're bringing in from an incubator whatever the reason you want to bring them in
one at a time let's pretend we're doing that so i would bring bring this little guy in isn't it fun
to hold these guys it's so fun give them a little dip in the waterer so they know where it is and so
they get their drink now little chicks can go two or three days well 72 hours without food but once
they get food and water they have to drink look look at them pegging each other okay they do peck
at each other you guys heard of it calling the pecking order and that kind of pecking is fine
if they're taking somebody down that somebody is sick okay and that's their natural way of
strengthening their species strengthening their flock okay
the strongest survive and you can either separate that one out you certainly wouldn't
want to breed that one again because you want strong genetics especially if you're breeding
and you could separate it out if you want and see if it will get better we actually did that with
one a little bit earlier don't be worried about losses i will i mean a crazy amount of losses
like over 10 percent you know under that it's gonna be expected we actually lost a guy a guy
or gal that someone was wrapped around their leg as they hatched and it cut off that circulation
and by the time we saw it and when we got them out of the incubator uh we treated it we treated
it there was an infection so we treat it with a peroxide and then put some homemade salve on it
but the little thing didn't make it we did put it aside in a cardboard box right here
and you could do that otherwise they're going to take each other down and just see if it recovers
and if not just let nature take its course oh if you really want to get saucy give them some
natural feeds that's just some food scraps from our our kitchen it would probably help it would
help if i broke it up mom over here would be breaking it up for them so break it up real fine
and they'll really enjoy that it could be any any food scraps from your kitchen eggs look look
at them picking at it eggs lettuce and if you don't have anything like that or broccoli head
would probably be really good go out into the grass and just pick them some grass or clover
and they'll really appreciate it is it absolutely necessary no they've got their complete diet in
that grain set up but this is certainly a plus it will go a long way to keeping them healthy
and happy so that's really it just just remember probably the most important thing is just relax
take a deep breath have fun with it they are very resilient sure you may lose some and it's to be
expected and it's okay to be sad about it but just keep on going they're in much better care
than they would have been and and some other conventional farm or something like that so
just remember that you're doing a good service for them for the species and for your family
so just just sit back relax do your best and enjoy