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Brooder huts and night shelters


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Hello all,

 

We have finally got all our birds to the woods 1300 in 3 pens. Our syndicate is planning to put 3000 down next year and sell a couple of days to offset the cost.I was just wondering if anyone had some good plans for brooder huts and night shelters as we plan to up scale form rearing 800 day olds to do 3000 next year. Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

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Whatever you build, make sure you can stand up in them.

 

When we did ours last season we just used 8x4 sheets of ply and made up some brood huts.

2 for the floor

2 for the roofs

4 for the sides (1 with door)

(If you build them in a row next to each other you can dispense with one board for the middle wall)

 

And the (unconventional) brooders, 3 in total.

image_zpsb225b26c.jpg

Pic courtesy of Paul223

 

This gave us a 8x8 brood hut at 4 foot high. They held 200 very well from incubator through to the hardening off pen. They will quite happily take 400 bumble bees but they would need thinning out after the first week or so.

 

Just be careful with the heat at this hight (4'), it can overheat very easily in hot weather. This is one of the reasons if we did it again, I would prefer a higher ceiling.

The second reason is so I can put a table and chairs in and enjoy my breakfast when the Good Lady kicks me out for spending to much time with the birds :lol:

As I and she did last season :ninja:

20140601_114956_zps4f47d7b0.jpg

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We used to put 500 in an 8x8 hut, our huts were the same hieght althou with a sloping flat roof, but our night shelter was double that size. All our huts were free standing so u can have plenty of run space which is the norm. We also never had a floor and just put sawdust/chip ontop of grass

 

 

Dunno if anyone else will pick up on this, but i'd say u were lucky not to gas ur poults, for all u have a window not a lot of other breathing holes, usually drill 2" holes right round the top every 4-6" so heaters get plenty of air without opening window.

A few years ago our game farmer told uus about a local experienced shooter who built a suer insulated massive brooder hut to take a few thousand chicks, he lost about 95% the first nite due to CO poisoning

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We used to put 500 in an 8x8 hut, our huts were the same hieght althou with a sloping flat roof, but our night shelter was double that size. All our huts were free standing so u can have plenty of run space which is the norm. We also never had a floor and just put sawdust/chip ontop of grass

 

 

Dunno if anyone else will pick up on this, but i'd say u were lucky not to gas ur poults, for all u have a window not a lot of other breathing holes, usually drill 2" holes right round the top every 4-6" so heaters get plenty of air without opening window.

A few years ago our game farmer told uus about a local experienced shooter who built a suer insulated massive brooder hut to take a few thousand chicks, he lost about 95% the first nite due to CO poisoning

We did have vents (the same size as the windows) to the rear at ground level, but I take your point :good:

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Nae bother i thought u must have and u obvioulsy have never had any problems so i wouldnae worry. Just thought i'd mention it just in case, may very well be told i'm talking nonesense anyway :whistling: won't be the first or last time i've been told that

 

I'd wait and see wot some of the other exerienced keepers/rearers say, but that is the way i was taught and means u can keep the windows shut more to keep huts dark to save pecking

 

Ps Possibly help with ur over heating problem, but u would use more gas at nite, but u could put a slide shutter on for nite or just srew a piece of timber on on cold nites?

Edited by scotslad
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That was the first year those huts have been used out side, hence the redesigned roof, the many years of use they had previously where in a barn with a mesh roof and a potato blanket, which worked fine as usually the blanket would be partially rolled back, the vents and doors are supposed to be front and back and the hardening off area was a large netted bay in the barn, they've worked great for many many thousands of pheasant.

 

Up until last year they were only used for one brood per year so the need to get inside regularly was minimal compared to doing multi broods

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That was the first year those huts have been used out side, hence the redesigned roof, the many years of use they had previously where in a barn with a mesh roof and a potato blanket, which worked fine as usually the blanket would be partially rolled back, the vents and doors are supposed to be front and back and the hardening off area was a large netted bay in the barn, they've worked great for many many thousands of pheasant.

 

Up until last year they were only used for one brood per year so the need to get inside regularly was minimal compared to doing multi broods

 

Would the non solid tatty sack roof not allow it to breathe throu the roof?

 

Any brooder hut i've ever seen has large daimeter holes drilled round the top to let air in for the heaters, mibee just how we do them locally?

But i would possibly look into it just incase u have trouble in the future, it would be very easy to overlook it

Edited by scotslad
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Yeah when used with the potato blanket it does breath but still requires rolling back a bit, with the solid roof I installed some vents low down to help create a draw of warm air using convection so that cool fresh air would always be drawn in, the vents were quite large at about 12-14 inch tall by 6-8 inch wide, low enough to be almost level with the top of a deep bed when ramped up the sides and covered in inch weld mesh, providing more than ample air changes

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