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Brooder Needs!


Check out my DIY's for my chickens:
DIY waterer: ...read here.
DIY feeder pipe: ...read here.

Matt here, Home Farm Ideas!

Today I want to talk to you about this video. I went out this day and got three baby chicks. One is a Rhode Island red the other two are Barred rocks. I wanted to get chickens to help me get rid of pests in my garden, to till the soil for me, and to have them produce as many eggs as they possibly could! Another side benefit of course would be all that rich manure! I had read some books about keeping chickens before I purchase them and so I guess you could say I was somewhat prepared;)

I really wanted to try and give my chickens as much healthy food as I possibly could and so that meant handpicking as many bugs as I could from my garden and around my house to give my girls! As a matter of fact in this video you should be able to see little worms crawling around in their brooder. I purposely put them there so that when my chickens were put in the brooder they would have live food immediately. I was also being very picky about the feed because you are what you eat.


I live in Huntington Beach, ca and I checked with the city to see if I could keep chickens before I got them. You can have 4 hens but no males. That was fine with me because I would have killed a loud bird anyways;)

I have heard over and over the hens need a rooster to get your hens to produce eggs but that is not true. They will still lay lots of eggs (avg for my birds is about 200 eggs per year each) without a rooster. The eggs will just be infertile. As a matter of fact, when roosters are around they tend to stress out the hens with how controlling they are and hens are known to lay less eggs.

I started my chicks out in my garage in a rabbit cage. There are some things you need to get before you get baby chickens so lets just have a look at what we will need:)


Things you will need:

  • A chicken waterer of some kind. (Keep water very clean!!)
  • A chicken feeder and try and get organic feed.
  • A 100w hanging light.
  • Wood shavings for bedding.
  • A box or rabbit cage that they can grow into for the next 4-5 weeks!


Things to keep in mind:

To keep the water and the feed free from chicken poop make sure to raise there feeder and waterer off the ground high enough to reach the chicks back. If you can get it that high they can still eat but there butts will be to low for them to poop in the food or water:)

I have other videos I will be posting on what I did to try and keep there water and food clean. Also, I made it very easy to change there water and feed:)

Keep a close eye on them for about 4 weeks!

Like always God Bless:)

8 comments:

  1. Great little post on chickens Matt. I have 3 Rhode Islands and a Dominique (like a Barred Rock). They just started laying like crazy. Good Luck. By the way we are somewhat neighbors, my ranch is just north of San Diego in Valley Center,CA www.heycowgirl.com

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    1. Thank you! I will have way more as time goes on I am sure;) I have a question to ask you. What should I look for in the way of my girls laying? Do they start to sit a lot more or what? What you got going on on your little homestead?

      God Bless!

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  2. Cute chicks! The first thing I always do with my chicks is gently tip their beaks in the water, the same with the food. They have no idea what a feeder is all about, and this lets them know immediately where the food is. This can greatly decrease your mortality rate, as they need to get some nutrition within 24 hrs. I also put them on newspaper the first few days, to keep them from eating the wood chips. Keep up the good work and I'll be checking on their progress!

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  3. Good tips and I totally agree! Went a switched my chicks to water nipples I had to tap on it a few times so they could see the water drop from it. Once they seen that they were all over it:) The nipples was a God sent! It keeps the water so clean!

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  4. I am going to be posting a DIY video on these nipples as soon as I can:) Make sure to join me and lots of other active members on our facebook page. I normally post my all my updates for this site on there.

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    1. Here is the address to the facebook page:) http://www.facebook.com/groups/Home.Farm.Ideas

      Forgot to post it! Ha ha ha!

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  5. great I have 8 hens and 2 roosters, hatch 3 myself will try more now the roosters are old enough and have fertilised eggs.

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    1. Nice:) How long have you been keeping chickens?

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