We have new babies! Since some of our hens are three years old, they have stopped producing eggs everyday. We recently purchased six Partridge Plymouth Rock chicks to help our aging flock. They are soooo cute and fuzzy!
Baby chicks need to be kept in a brooder for the first 60 days. The first week of life they need to stay at about 95 degrees. Then each week you can drop the temperature five degrees. We use a red heat lamp to keep them warm at night. Hubby came up with a plan for a unique brooder since we didn’t have a cage for our garage (were we kept our first group of chicks years ago). He used the bottom portion of our little greenhouse! Dual purpose greenhouse- raising plants and chicks!
Hubby built shelves for the top of the greenhouse for our seedlings for the garden. For the brooder, he covered the floor with cardboard and then shavings. He used cardboard to create a little cave and covering from the sun.
He also used cardboard to box off the large pot of herbs I have growing in the corner. By the way, those are the herbs I started from seed a few weeks ago! We have a thermometer in there so we can gauge if the heat lamp needs to be on or off.
So far everyone is happy, the plants and the chicks!
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[…] since we brought the baby chicks home, our border collie mix Sydney has been on guard. She spends most of the day laying in front of […]