by Michael Lobby
Well, it was a little bit of a frenzy getting the brooder ready for the arrival of the cornish cross chicks. I received a friendly early morning phone call from the post office the morning after their two day journey from Missouri. I could barely make out the voice on the phone as the little chicks were peeping loudly in the background.
I converted the outside stalls of the barn to a chicken brooder, turkey brooder, and a remodeled stall for Chatta (Dylan’s horse).
The girls are always interested in what’s going on.
I framed the inside like a horse stall so one day when I have a movable pasture pen for the layers, we can use it for a horse.
Home for the Cornish X’s. Feed is placed on newspaper for the first couple of days so they don’t eat the bedding. After that they will start eating from a feeder. The red bell is a waterer that is gravity-fed from a 5 gallon bucket.
Here is Dylan checking out his dinner. The lamps have 250 watt bulbs that warm the area under them to about 95 degrees. They are gradually raised above the floor until the chicks don’t need the heat anymore and can go out on to the pasture.
Chatta’s new digs.
Eventually, the space next to Chatta’s stall will be closed in also. That would bring the barn up to ten 12×12 spaces for horses and farm animals.
The turkey brooder will house 25 Broad Breasted Giant White Turkeys. I have begun deconstructing the the old chicken coop/yard and reusing the materials for other things. The door of the turkey brooder came from the old yard. The cedar that frames the windows is from a load of cedar I got from Idaho last Summer.
Reuse is a very big thing for me personally. There are materials I used for the barn that came from our last two houses. I figured out I’ve reused about 90% of the old barn in the construction of this new one. The downside of reuse, though, is the fact that our shop and storage shed is getting pretty packed with things that “I could use for something someday.”
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