Raising Babies in Small Flocks Outdoors

Discussion: Raising Babies in Small Flocks Outdoors ~ Reasons for Tossing Out Your Indoor Brooder and Start Raising Your Chicks Outdoors

We recently came across a very interesting article, and we thought it well worth further thought and discussion. The article delves into the idea of raising ducklings and chicks outside while they are babies. This idea goes very much against the current, popular belief that young poultry must be raised in indoor brooders to protect the birds against a bevy of dangers and threats found in an outdoor environment.

Take a look at this article: Reasons for Tossing Out Your Indoor Brooder and Start Raising Your Chicks Outdoors written by Azygous on Backyard Chickens from 2.25.16. It focuses on different ways to raise babies in small flocks outdoors and the benefits of doing so. We’ve condensed and summarized the article’s key points below. Let’s dive in.

Reason one for opting to throw out your indoor brooder is simply because indoor brooders situated on the floor create scared, wary poultry. "Why?" you may ask. Well, indoor brooders placed on the ground mean that humans must bend over and stick their hands in the brooder each time they interact with the baby birds. Can you imagine being a small bird that has to deal with large human figures hovering overhead with hands that dive in from above and grab birds at will? Remember that poultry instinctively are wary of anything approaching them from the sky – is that a hawk?

An easy solution to this scenario is placing your brooder on a table and utilizing a large cardboard box. Azygours writes that he “…found a fresh cardboard appliance box, placed it on a table, and cut an access door into the side. The difference in the chicks was stunning. From day one, the new babies were calm, friendly, and easily handled. When they grew into adults, they remained easy to handle, and some have been total lap chickens.” This is because the baby birds interacted with humans on an equal horizontal landscape as opposed to a top down approach.

Taking this idea a little further, Azygours learned that by moving his indoor brooder to a grower window where the birds had window access to views of the garden outside was revolutionary regarding the impact it had on the chicks. A brooder set up like the one shown in the glass box photo below allowed baby poultry to see the world outside from an elevated view. The ability to see the world outside – the wildlife, the people, the coming & going – resulted in chicks that grew up to be fearless. These birds grew to adulthood in an open environment and were not confined to a dark box. They had a “birds eye view” from day one and it definitely impacted their confidence and their ability to interact positively with their environment.

Azygours next took this idea to the next level and looked into raising chicks outside in their own pen adjacent to a pen with adult birds in it. A simple screen separates the two flocks as seen in the photo below:

Azygours’ findings were very interesting. He found that the advantages are amazing when chicks, ducklings, and goslings are allowed to be raised in an outdoor environment in full view of their adult counterparts:

* They have the advantage of being accepted as a flock member from day one. They learn the flock’s pecking order before being thrown right into it.
* Chicks are also able to learn self-confidence from a very early age with this set up. They can mingle with adult birds but they cannot be trampled or injured by the adults. They learn the concept of dangers inherent in big birds without being thrust suddenly into that environment like brooder box babies are.

There are also other advantages worth mentioning when baby birds are raised outdoors as opposed to in box brooders.

* For one, they become cold hardy at a very young age. They do not have to go through an acclimation period that indoor chicks experience when they are moved from their heated indoor brooder to their outside coop.
* Outdoor raised birds also seem to feather out sooner.
* It has also been noted that chicks raised outdoors appeared to acquire an early immunity to pathogens due to their early exposure to outside germs and bacteria.

In summary, Azygours makes the following conclusion regarding his outside brooder set up for his baby birds. He writes that young poultry “…appears to be much happier and develop more naturally [outside]. Chicks raised outdoors [next to an] adult flock in a safe pen with lots of space and freedom acquire important immunities, cold resistance, knowledge, and skills that are denied to chicks raised in the overprotective environment of an indoor brooder.”

We at Metzer Farms are not saying everyone should suddenly abandon their indoor brooders and start brooding outdoors. Rather, we want to address this topic so that we could open the conversation. The many benefits of brooding chicks outdoors are fascinating and well worth discussing. We want to bring attention to this important discussion and this new way of looking at things.

Have you tried any of these alternate outdoor approaches to brooding your birds? If so, what are your thoughts and what have you learned? Let us know in the comments section below.