6 Easy Chick Brooder Ideas

Raising Baby Chicks is Easier with These Inexpensive Brooders

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Need some quick and easy chick brooder ideas? When you first bring your new baby chicks or ducklings home or hatch out some eggs, you will need a place that the babies can call home. This is called a brooder and there are lots of different ways to create a brooder. Most of these cost very little and some may be made from items you already have around the house. Using a chicken brooder that is the appropriate size for the number of chicks and changing it once or twice as they grow, will keep the chicks warm enough during development. It will also make it easy for you to clean up after them and keep them safe from any curious household pets.

Use A Large Plastic Tote

chick-brooder-ideas-plastic tote

You can’t get much easier than a plain plastic tote when it comes to chick brooder ideas. These are easily found in hardware and home stores. The totes come in various sizes and the size you need will depend on how many chicks you are going to raise. I often start with a smaller tote for the first weeks and then move them into a large, long storage tote as they grow and begin to eat more and run around more. This year, I also added a wire fence around the tote to give it more height. The chicks are able to fly up and out of the bin after three weeks and this keeps them contained a bit longer!

Plastic Children’s Swimming Pool

chick-brooder-ideas

My favorite of these easy chick brooder ideas works great for raising ducklings — a toddler swimming pool. These come in various sizes and the only problem is that they take up a good bit of floor space in your home. Ducklings can go outside earlier than chicks, but while they are still covered in down, they need to be kept warm and dry. This is not easy with the mess they create. Ducklings can make a soggy mess out of a small amount of water! Using the swimming pool allows you to wipe it out easily, keeping the brooder cleaner. There are poles that can be purchased to hang the heat lamp over the swimming pool brooder.

Large Dog Crate Wrapped In Chicken Wire

I have also modified a large dog crate and used it as a brooder for chicks. I needed to add some chicken wire around the outside to keep the chicks from squeezing through the bars in the crate, but it worked just fine for many weeks.

Easy Chick Brooders

Large Cooler With Lid Removed

If you have a large ice chest cooler, this would work as a brooder but I would remove the lid to prevent it from accidentally closing and reducing the air supply to the chicks. Like the toddler swimming pool, the cooler will be easy to clean out. A drawback would be that it is not transparent so you would not have as much light getting into the chicks.

Water or Feed Trough

One of my personal favorites, and an idea that many feed stores use for brooders, is a metal water trough. These are usually a more expensive option when it comes to chick brooder ideas, but they work extremely well. If you have an older one that leaks and can’t be used in the field any longer, you could re-purpose it as a chick brooder.

chick-brooder-ideas
Using the chick corral as a grow out pen for the pullets. I find a chick corral can be used many different ways.

Brooder Corrals

Brooder corrals are another good option in this list of easy chick brooder ideas. These are often found at larger farm retail stores. The corral consists of many panels that are connected together to form a round pen that sits on the floor. The space requirement is similar to using the child’s swimming pool, although you can adjust it to a more oval shape or take some panels out to make it smaller. The floor still needs to be covered with a tarp or drop cloth and covered with shavings or newspaper. I have used a system like this for a grow out pen to give the chicks more space as they grow and before they have enough feathers to move to the coop. It’s not a bad system but the cleanup is a little harder and more intensive.

Chicks In A Brooder

As your chicks grow and the wing feathers develop, you will need to add some sort of cover. If you don’t,  you are likely to come home to the chicks having a party all over your house! I use some re-purposed items from around my homestead, such as a piece of chicken wire, some window screening, a large piece of cardboard, anything that allows air to flow and keeps the chicks in, should solve the problem.

What kind of brooder system do you like to use? Please share your easy chick brooder ideas with us in the comments.

Originally published in 2015 and regularly vetted for accuracy.

5 thoughts on “6 Easy Chick Brooder Ideas”
  1. I’m a first timer and getting 10 chicks on Tuesday, April 4. 5 Buff Orpingtons and 5 Road Island Reds. I’m using a kiddy pool for the first week or two, then moving them into a refrigerator box with a patio screen door over top so they don’t fly out. I may duck tape two boxes together, cut a door opening between them, keep food and water on one side, and 2×4 roosts on the other side. I live in mid Michigan, so I plan to move them to the outdoor 8×10 coop by week 8 (end of May). Does that sound right? So excited to get started! Thanks for your ideas.

    1. Jackie,

      Good luck with the new chicks!!! First and foremost, keep them warm. Do you have any other critters that could get to them in the kiddie pool?

      1. No other critters. Kiddy pool is all set up with bedding, news paper on top, heat lamp, thermometer, food, and majic water. Temperature under heat lamp is 95 degrees. Chicks have shipped and are on there way.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *