Building a Brooder Box for our baby chicks

OK WOW It's taken me THREE tries to get this entry in and quit frankly I'm getting Pi****! lol  I keep putting the pictures over to far and the the whole screen goes blank! And my entry vanishes!  GRRRR  Here is try THREE! 

A few days ago we built a brooder box for our chicks. The chicks will be delivered on the 23 of May.  We started out with a regular box from Walmart.  This box was perfect...we got it in the produce dept and they are the boxes that hold the watermelon.  Very thick and sturdy!  Perfect for what we need it for! AND when we are done with it I will fold it up and store it for next time ;) 



We do have to build the screen top and the floor for it and this is why it needs a floor!  Now after I got this someone did tell me you can ask for a cover and that cover can go for the bottom.  ME, I prefer to just make one out of plywood as it would be easier to clean and dry out if it happened to get wet.  Update:  i'm done with the brooder box now and I was happy we used plywood as the water was spilled a few times and the wood dried out nicely...cardboard would not have dried so well and may have molded as well. 



The dimensions of the box are 40" X 48" and 25 " high.  Here we are building the top and cutting the floor.  Very easy stuff to do :) SO FAR!  We may be saying different when it comes time to build the Hen house! 





Our little helper :)





The floor in:



Our finished product:



We got everything we need to start our little flock EXCEPT the flock!  I can't believe it's only the 21st of APRIL and I have to wait until the 23 of MAY to get my chicks!  :(   I'm sure I will grumping about it until then! 

Now look what we picked up at Fleet Farm!  I'm so excited about this little thing you don't even know!  Check this out:

It's a thermometer to keep track of the temp inside the brooder box!  you set the device below where ever you are.... The very top is the time...the middle temp is our indoor temp and the bottom temp is the brooder temp.  Now it's only reads 62 right now because the light is not on and it's cooler in our basement then it is upstairs.  Of course the bottom temp will read 95 once we get our babies in there! 



And you set the below device inside the brooder box as shown below: now this can be mounted on the wall of the box so the chicks don't poop all over it too!  Note...will duct tape around the edges so the babies don't get their little feet stuck in the cracks. 



Here we are testing the thermometer and it works perfectly!  It reached 95 degrees in no time at all.  About 30 min prob!  We will of course make sure it's at the perfect temp before we go get our birds. This little gadget was well worth the money and it was only about 13 bucks at Fleet Farm :) 



Here are all our supplies:




I also got the area where our chicken coop will go raked...well, 1/2 raked.  Will get the rest prepared this week.  Then it's time to start building our Hen House! :)  can't wait!  Our hen house will go to the right of our dog kennel...we don't use the dog kennel but when my sister comes up to stay with us she uses it.  So I didn't want to tear it down.  It's in great shape yet! 



Well folks...there you have it!  WE are ready for our chicks!  I want them now!  I can't get them for a month yet! :(  you will here more from be before I get them I'm sure :)