Mama Heating Pad in the Brooder (Picture Heavy) - UPDATE

[jrjoplin]

MHP is working great at night, but the smallest chick in the bunch chirps like mad because it's not warm enough. Have to supplement still with heat lamp. Is this normal? Also, they spend most of the time on top of the MHP than in it. It seems as though the only time they go in the MHP is when I put them in there for bedtime.

I have 7 chicks. You could have it nailed, but the light in the room stays on during the day regardless. Is that what you were talking about? Or are you talking about direct heat from the light being the trigger?

My chicks now spend more time on top than inside. They do go inside at night but during the day when the temperature rises they seem to prefer to be on top. I figure they'll find the right spot to get warm if they need to.

I also have a chick that chirps more than the others. Mine is one of my larger chicks and as far as I can tell it just wants attention. My money is on that it will be the needy, clingy chicken of the flock.

 

[aart]

Quote: Geesh ....little PITA....and it's stays under the heat lamp?
I'd turn that lamp off and go far enough not to hear.

 

[Beekissed]

At night with the lights out and chicks under MHP, complete silence. It's only during the day and only with MHP provided heat that this one little chick chirps like mad. It only stops when heating pads go off and heat lamp goes on.

Just about every time I've ever had a chick that cheeps continually, when all the other chicks seem comfortable, that chick had something wrong with it and I'd find it dead before long. No pasty butt, no obvious reasons for death, just dead on the floor. It happens. Any time you have livestock, you'll eventually have dead stock.

 

[Robblob]

Just about every time I've ever had a chick that cheeps continually, when all the other chicks seem comfortable, that chick had something wrong with it and I'd find it dead before long. No pasty butt, no obvious reasons for death, just dead on the floor. It happens. Any time you have livestock, you'll eventually have dead stock.

Ehhhhhh. I hope that doesn't happen. I already had that happen with one of the chicks, but I think it was due to my ignorance with the heat lamp when I first brought them home. Said chick would chirp chirp chirp and boom....dead. Fingers crossed that it's just a needy chick seeking attention.

 

[eagrbeavr]

I'm really glad you didnt take that as a personal attack. This entire concept is 90% faith, for us. If theyre still growing it sounds like thyre fine. Have some wine

 

[ksguy]

It's unusual that they haven't learned it by now but chickens are just that way....never do what you expect. I'd not use a lot of light when you go to put them away each night and I'd have that heating pad set a good deal higher...they need to know that the HP is the warmest place under which to hunker, especially in 30 degree weather. Right now it seems they are finding each other as the warmest option. I'd remove some of the straw on top...could be they are not sensing the warmth under there and are not homing in on the brooder as the source of a greater warmth than their own and each other's body heat.

Then I'd shove them under there at dark and walk away. No light. If you have street lights or dusk til dawn lights shining into your coop, they may be a tad confused about when to go to bed, so blanket any windows that are allowing any light in the brooder.

The only light I've been using when I go out is my cell phone flashlight. I lost my headlamp that has the red LED or I'd use that instead. We also live out in the country and use no supplemental lighting in the yard (unless we're out swimming after dark, then we turn the yard light on - but that's not a concern yet

) and there are no nearby street lights. They're also far enough from the house that they shouldn't be getting any light from the house (with the possible exception of the back porch light when we let the dog out). So when the sun goes down, it's just darkness. Also their "brooder" at this point is a 3' x 6' mini-run built out of a 2x2 wood frame covered in hardware cloth, so it doesn't provide any shade. I did it that way so they have access to see the big girls, and vice versa.

I'll definitely be bumping the heating pad back up to level 3 tonight. I'll try your suggestion of removing a bit of the straw from the top, but I'd like to leave most of the front opening obscured except for maybe a 5" tunnel for them, just to help keep the warmth inside.

 

[Ridgerunner]

 


Just about every time I've ever had a chick that cheeps continually, when all the other chicks seem comfortable, that chick had something wrong with it and I'd find it dead before long.   No pasty butt, no obvious reasons for death, just dead on the floor.  It happens.  Any time you have livestock, you'll eventually have dead stock. 

Ehhhhhh.  I hope that doesn't happen.  I already had that happen with one of the chicks, but I think it was due to my ignorance with the heat lamp when I first brought them home.  Said chick would chirp chirp chirp and boom....dead.  Fingers crossed that it's just a needy chick seeking attention.

Who knows why that chick is cheeping? There could be something wrong with it physically, it may have imprinted on something weird so it’s lonely even when surrounded by other chicks, or who knows what else. I’ve had some chicks that were just really vocal, though not with the distressed peeping.

I’ll tell a story. One year I got a bunch of chicks in the mail, the first chickens I got when I moved here. They were hatched on a Sunday and shipped on that Monday morning. On Friday, when they were five days old (younger than yours so this is not your problem) and the egg yolk they had absorbed before hatch ran out, one Australorp pullet started giving that distressed peep. It was just standing there peeping. After I while I dipped its beak in the water. It stood there and guzzled water. It was obviously thirsty, getting dehydrated.

I had dipped its beak in water when I first put it in there. The other chicks were drinking but it never learned from watching them like a normal chick would.

Fast forward a bit over a year. One of my Black Australorps went broody and hatched out several chicks. That was the dumbest broody I ever saw. She kept getting separated from her chicks and getting them in trouble. She managed to raise all of them but only because the rooster worked overtime helping her out when she got in a bind. I don’t know for sure but I think it might have been the same chick.

I don’t know what is going to happen to that chick. You might look at it like people that help a chick that has trouble hatching. A lot of those are going to die anyway, there is a reason they had trouble hatching. But some will do fine after you help them. You just don’t know until it is all over. I wish you luck.

 

[ksguy]

At night with the lights out and chicks under MHP, complete silence. It's only during the day and only with MHP provided heat that this one little chick chirps like mad. It only stops when heating pads go off and heat lamp goes on.

I have one chick that is much louder than the others. I've kind of decided she's just kind of a loudmouth A.W. She's also a daredevil - the first to fly up onto the feeder, the first to jump off of it (then on, then off, then on, then off. . . ), the first to try to fly off of my hands while I was holding her, and the first to try and escape the brooder before I put the high sides on it. Not sure if that's your case. Her "concerned" cheeps are quite different than her loud "conversational" cheeps, though. The first couple nights with MHP, when she wandered out by herself after bedtime, she got scared because she couldn't find her friends - who were 12" behind her under the heating pad - and screamed like mad.

 

[WyoJax]

I'm beginning to wonder if I've maybe got a set of really ... erm...intellectually challenged chicks. They're 18 days old, been using MHP for about 11 days. When they were inside, we'd try really hard to keep the lighting in the room "natural" and help them under the heating pad at bedtime. They started getting the hang of it after 3 or 4 nights. On Saturday, I moved them outside to a 3'x8' run within the run where my big girls live. The weather was great and they had a blast. They'd occasionally nap on top of the pad, but never under it. My outside setup is very similar to Blooie's in the original post - heating pad cave covered in straw with some straw bedding inside.

Both nights I've gone out right around dusk to make sure they went to bed. Both times they were huddled in the corner of their coop, cheeping furiously - presumably getting chilly (I won't flatter myself by saying they missed me). I had to force them under the heating pad and obscure the opening with straw to keep them inside - they kept coming out trying to huddle down underneath me. Saturday night I was out there regularly until after 3AM checking on them. Last night bedtime was the same story, but I only checked on them once after dark, at 11, and they were still inside. Everyone was alive and well this morning. 

My heating pad is set to level 2 (3 level pad). As I mentioned the cave is higher on one side and tapers down to lower on the other so they have a range of places to hunker down. Tonight it's supposed to get down to 30 and I worry they'll wander out and freeze. Am I just being a worried parent or are my chicks just not "getting it"? 

Last night my girls were out in the garage for the first time, we got snow. All is well and everyone is happy!! In fact I believe my littlest is happier than being inside because sisters cuddle with her now. Before eshe was left to sleeping on top of sisters for cuddle time which was ADORABLE.
I have to remind myself a lot that these little babies although seem fragile have an amazing preservation instinct.

 

[Beekissed]

The only light I've been using when I go out is my cell phone flashlight. I lost my headlamp that has the red LED or I'd use that instead. We also live out in the country and use no supplemental lighting in the yard (unless we're out swimming after dark, then we turn the yard light on - but that's not a concern yet

) and there are no nearby street lights. They're also far enough from the house that they shouldn't be getting any light from the house (with the possible exception of the back porch light when we let the dog out). So when the sun goes down, it's just darkness. Also their "brooder" at this point is a 3' x 6' mini-run built out of a 2x2 wood frame covered in hardware cloth, so it doesn't provide any shade. I did it that way so they have access to see the big girls, and vice versa.

I'll definitely be bumping the heating pad back up to level 3 tonight. I'll try your suggestion of removing a bit of the straw from the top, but I'd like to leave most of the front opening obscured except for maybe a 5" tunnel for them, just to help keep the warmth inside.

Has it been that way all along? Could be why they can't find the heat source....just throwing around ideas here. I'd leave that front wide open....the heat from the HP, the chicks and also being inside of a coop should be warmth enough. A hen has a full circumference of openings for the chick to get under her warmth and I could see chicks having a real difficulty with that if she only had 5 inches of opening in which to find warmth. Chicks are pretty dumb that way.