Brooders for chicks

A chick hatched under a broody hen has her warmth. Chicks from an incubator have no hen, so their keeper builds a warm space for them, called a brooder.

Setting one up

The Poultry Club says incubated chicks need a heat lamp to keep them warm. It prefers one with a ceramic bulb, which gives heat without light. With natural light and darkness, the club says, the chicks are less likely to peck at each other's feathers.

The club suggests a draught free spot with a generous layer of wood shavings on the floor, or a ring of hardboard about 45cm high around the lamp. It says the space should be rectangular, with the lamp at one end, so the chicks can control their own temperature.

Turn the lamp on two days before the chicks are due, the club advises. Hang it far enough above the shavings that the temperature underneath is about 39°C.

Reading the chicks

The chicks show whether the heat is right. The Poultry Club says chicks that are too hot scatter to the edges and pant. Chicks that are too cold huddle in the middle, cheeping loudly. The ideal is a small empty circle just under the lamp.

When young birds move to a new house, the club suggests rounding off the corners with cardboard. That stops them crowding into a corner and smothering each other.

Food and water

Water needs a container the chicks cannot drown in, and the club says pebbles in a shallow dish work well. For food it recommends chick crumbs with 20 to 22% protein and an additive that helps control coccidiosis, a disease caused by a parasite. A feeder with small openings or a swivel top cuts waste.

The same page notes that hen eggs take 21 days to hatch, and duck and turkey eggs 28 days. For ducklings and goslings, the British Waterfowl Association is the UK charity for ducks and geese.

Heat lamps and fire

Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service has heat lamp advice for farms, written for lambing pens. Lively, curious young animals and flammable bedding near a lamp are a fire risk, it says. Its tips:

• Keep heat lamps clean and in good working order, with guards in place.
• Secure them to something solid with chain, not twine, and preferably not to the pen itself.
• Keep them a safe distance from anything that burns.
• If you use an extension lead, uncoil it fully, keep it in good condition, and never overload it or plug one lead into another.
• Keep straw and other flammable materials to a minimum where lamps are in use.

Registering your birds

Anyone keeping poultry in England or Wales has to register within a month of the birds arriving at a premises, GOV.UK says, and pet hens count. Not registering breaks the law. Scotland has its own guidance, and a separate form covers keepers of 50 or more birds.

Useful links

• Register as a keeper of less than 50 poultry or other captive birds (Defra and APHA, GOV.UK)
• Register as a keeper of 50 or more poultry or other captive birds (GOV.UK)
• Bird flu: how to spot and report it in poultry or other captive birds (GOV.UK)
• Heat lamp safety (Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service)
• Hatching, rearing and care of young poultry (The Poultry Club)
• Domestic ducks (British Waterfowl Association)