Chick season is here!
Before you bring home your chirping balls of fluff, make sure they have a safe and comfortable home! Chick brooders are easy to build yourself and can range from temporary to permanent and simple to downright fancy! We’ve used several different styles of brooders over the years, and you’ll see them in the list below.
Regardless of how you decide to create your chick brooder, there are some basics that your chicks will need. Fresh water, high quality chick feed, a source of heat and dry bedding are essential for raising healthy chicks. You will also want to make sure that your chicks can’t jump out of the brooder and that predators (or your household kitty!) can’t get in. Outside of that, the possibilities are endless!
Check out these 12 DIY chick brooders for inspiration!
DIY Entertainment Cabinet Chick Brooder
This is our current brooder! We found the entertainment cabinet for free on Craigslists. With a little paint and ingenuity, we transformed it into an awesome brooder! Plus, when we aren’t using it for a brooder, we drop in a few shelves and use it as our seed starting area! Here are the full step-by-step instructions on how to make your own!
Super Quick & Easy DIY Chick Brooder Bin
It doesn’t get easier than this! Oak Hill Homestead shows you how to make a simple brooder using a storage bin and wire. If you want a temporary brooder that is cheap and easy to assemble, this is a great option!
Pallet Wood Brooder
This was our first brooder. Lindy made it out of pallet wood and hardware cloth wire. The floor was lined with a leftover piece linoleum flooring for easy cleaning! It was heavy as heck to move, but I absolutely loved it and so did our ducklings and chicks!
Kiddie Pool DIY Chick Brooder
Montana Homesteader used a kiddie pool to make a comfy brooder! This is a super cheap and easy brooder idea! As your chicks grow and discover they can escape, you can easily wrap it in chicken wire to keep your babies from running away!
Dog Crate Brooder
A Home Made from Scratch shows us how to convert a wire dog crate to a chick brooder in just a few easy steps! This is a great idea for a temporary brooder! The crate can be folded down and stored away until you’re ready to use it again. We always keep a couple of these wire crates on hand. We use them when we introduce new chickens to the flock and to separate injured/sick birds.
Spacious Storage Bin Brooder
If you are ready to expand from a basic storage bin, this spacious brooder from Sage & Shepherd Farm is perfect! They attached two storage bins to give their chicks extra room to move and grow! Those look like some happy chicks to me!
Repurposed Crib Brooder
Put an old crib to good use! Amy, from This Mama’s Life, shows you how to turn a crib into a perfect chick brooder! I would have never thought of this but it seems so simple and easy to adapt the crib. Plus, old cribs are easy to find for free or cheap!
Simple “In the Coop” Chick Brooder
This is the brooder we used in our former chicken/duck house! I absolutely loved having the chicks and baby ducks in the same coop with the adult birds because it made a breeze to introduce them to the flock! The brooder frame was assembled with a couple 2×2 boards and then wrapped in chicken wire. The heat lamps were securely attached to the shelf above the brooder and the cords were run along the roof so they stayed out of the way of the chickens. When we moved, we actually broke this down and turned it into two smaller pens that we now use as “playpens” for our chicks so that they can go outside on warm days!
“Redneck” Storage Bin Brooder
This “redneck” chick brooder from The Self Sufficient HomeAcre is super easy to assemble using a plastic storage bin. Rather than using a heat lamp, they creatively DIY’d a heating area for their chicks using seedling heat mats! Pretty genius!
Wood Crate Brooder
Everstuft Ranch created this brooder from a wooden crate! I see these crates listed for free on Craigslist a lot! It makes the perfect brooder and gives the chicks lots of room to run around!
Scrap Lumber DIY Chick Brooder
This sturdy brooder from Scott Family Homestead is awesome! It looks like it would last or many years – which means lots of chicks! And it was made with scrap lumber, making it affordable and practical!
Easy-Clean Feed Bag Brooder
This brooder from Little Missouri Homestead is pretty darn genius! They lined the bottom of the brooder with hardware wire and hung feed bags below the brooder. That way, the chick droppings will fall through the wire and into the feed bags for easy cleaning! I would also recommend adding a section of flooring that isn’t wire to help protect your little chick’s feet and give them a break from the wire. But this coop is definitely a fun concept that I haven’t seen before!
What kind of chick brooder do you use? Share with us in the comments!
Love it? Pin it!
