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Building a DIY Chick Brooder is easier and cheaper than you might imagine. So if you are considering increasing your flock, or getting started with keeping chickens, here are ten ways you can build a homemade chicken brooder and do just that:
1- Plastic Box Chick Brooder
This chick brooder is made with an opaque plastic storage container of the type that you will find in most larger stores. Hardware cloth and wood framing are affixed into a hole in the original plastic lid of the box. Dowels for mini roosts secured with small screws to the edge of the box and a non-slip rubber surface below complete your brooder.
2- DIY Chick Brooder Plus Cage
These DIY brooder plans also utilise a plastic storage container, a shallower one that is then topped with a cage around 2ft tall made from a wood frame and hardware mesh. The chicks are kept warm with a heat lamp as usual and towels over three sides of the cage keep the interior just right. The cage is separate and can be used later to introduce new chickens to old ones outside.
3- Plastic Box Brooder Mark 2
Like the last two options, this DIY chicken brooder also utilizes a plastic storage box with lockable lid. With these plans, two vents are made in the lid, one to allow the heat from the heat lamp for chicks to get through, the other for ventilation.
4- Plastic Paddling Pool Chick Brooder
One enterprising chick owner used an old child’s paddling pool as a chick brooder. As the chicks grew, hardware cloth stapled onto a chair and wrapped round the circular pool made sure the chicks could not get out.
5- Wooden DIY Chick Brooder
If you would rather not use plastic to make your chick brooder then you could consider this option made from plywood, fixings, 1/4” hardware cloth and 2×4 pieces for legs.
6- Portable Outdoors Chick Brooder
These wonderful homemade chick brooder plans utilize things you are likely to have lying around. They are moveable brooder pens consisting of a covered area and more open run. These brooders can be kept warm with heat lamps for chicks and yet chicks can live more naturally right from the start, learning to scratch in the dirt and live as they should. Why keep chicks in unnatural and cramped conditions when you would never dream of doing that to adult hens?
7- Chick Brooders in Garage Shelves
If you are short on space for chick brooding, thinking vertical could be the answer. In the link below, you can see how someone made a neat DIY chick brooder within metal shelving.
8- Simple Plastic Chicken Brooder With EcoGlow Heater
Using an EcoGlow Heater rather than a traditional heat lamp reduces worries about fires. Cover it with contact paper before placing it in your plastic container to make it easier to clean. See the instructions for this simple chicken brooder.
9- Plastic Pool and Cardboard Brooder
These people made a DIY chick brooder from an old plastic paddling pool and raised the heights of the sides with large pieces of cardboard to keep the chicks in – another low cost and practical solution.
10- Toddler Pool Plus Lattice Brooder
Another variation on the theme of using old plastic pools as the base for a chick brooder is this one, which uses a chicken wire and plastic lattice around the pool to keep in the chicks.
Whichever of these DIY chicken brooder plans you use, you can use low-cost or reclaimed materials to keep baby chicks safe and warm.
