So, we’ve decided to start our chicken adventure. Because we’re logical and reasonable people who are very good at pacing ourselves, we decided to order 75 meat birds and 25 laying hens plus a rooster. So we are now the chicken version of 101 Dalmatians, minus a few spots.
To start this crazy train, we needed a brooder for the baby chicks arriving the first week of June. So we’ve spent the last few weekends building Joel Salatin’s chicken brooder from his book Polyface Designs. We chose this particular brooder for a few reasons. One, we already had the book, so we didn’t have to buy or design new plans. And two, Joel has been raising chickens longer than I’ve been alive, so I’d like to assume he knows a few things I don’t and I’d rather just take his advice to start us off.
But that’s how we ended up with a chicken brooder in our front yard. Now, I’ll go into details on why we chose our front yard for our brooder in a follow up post. But for now, here’s some thoughts on this build process.
Man, this was a long one. We severely underestimated the sheer time it would take to build this brooder. Mostly, I think this was due to our own inexperience. And partially because we had to pull out wood, tools, and paraphernalia every time we started since we didn’t live onsite yet. But we’ve been working on this most weekends for over a month.
Second roadblock was materials. We did try and stay with most of the design recommendations in the book, and finding some of the materials was a challenge. Like 9′ waterproof OSB… which our Home Depot didn’t think they had, even though the app said they did… because it was on the very tippy top shelf. Or aluminum roofing, which we never did find for a reasonable price and ended up using PVC roofing instead.
Maybe the biggest challenge, which might also be the biggest blessing, was the tiny helper that wanted to be involved in every part of the build. Nothing goes quickly with a one-year-old in tow, but especially not things where safety is a concern like with miter saws and such. So there were times where we just had to split and conquer. But there were also times where tiny hands made for big smiles.
We don’t have our chicks yet, but we’ll let you know what we think as we go. We’ve only got the windows left to finish and then to put down pine shavings and the build is complete. Then it’s adding pine shavings, heat lamps, food, water, and CHICKENS!
Can’t wait to start my journey as a crazy chicken lady…
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