Simulated Natural Nest Incubation~Experiment #1 So it begins....

[foxvalleyfarm]

When I'm done with this I will snap a picture.

 

[Beekissed]

Awwwwww, look at the little fluffies!!!!

Don't you wish they could stay little and fuzzy like that? I'm going to hate seeing this little KC duck grow up...LOVE the texture, color and look of his/her coat.

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

I wish they would stay the size they were at a week old. Of and I've never told you. These three has s heating pad mom at night for a week and then I moved them outside. They get a heat lamp at night now but are super warm to the touch all the time

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

Here you go. They are a week old and are Polish babies. I started with 5 but the cat got one... I tried to switch them to a lamp but they hated it. So for the next bunch to hatch they with have to stay in the hatcher to they cab get around and then join the older babies. I don't have any other way to warm them.

 

[Beekissed]

Very cute! Did you have to train them to it or did they just know to huddle under there? Mine didn't require any training at all...seems like they just knew! The meat chicks were placed under there on their first day and so that's how they learned, but the TSC chicks/ducklking all zoomed in on that heat source like old pros.

I love my heating pad mama...my 2-3 wk oldTSC chicks are loving it still and sleep under it every night and on top of it sometimes in the day. Can't see hide nor hair of them when you go up at night, just that little heating pad mama hutch.

Now, did you hatch these out traditionally or with a heating pad?

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

I put them under it when I moved them from the hatcher because they all required help hatching and were weak so they weren't very mobile. I incubated in my LG bator then hatched them in my tote hatcher. If I had another heating pad I would try it again but I only have one.

 

[bluebirdnanny]

My heating pad shuts off after 20 minutes. It wouldn't work for this and I am so afraid of fires.

But that said I was intrigued by the experiment AND its success!

 

[Beekissed]

Pretty much any electric devise is a fire risk, so one just chooses the lesser of the risks. As a nurse I'm pretty familiar with heating pads so it seems a low risk situation to me. Definitely less risk for brooding chicks, also, as the heat lamps are just major hot and have caused so many coop fires.

 

[bluebirdnanny]

Pretty much any electric devise is a fire risk, so one just chooses the lesser of the risks.  As a nurse I'm pretty familiar with heating pads so it seems a low risk situation to me.  Definitely less risk for brooding chicks, also, as the heat lamps are just major hot and have caused so many coop fires. 

Yep, I get that totally. Heat pad would be the better and the lamps create lighting that isn't that great for them anyway. I just have a phobia after watching our home burn when I was in sixth grade. Something a person has a hard time not worrying about in years following.

But then I DO many times fall asleep using my heating pad on myself. In flare ups it is the only way I CAN get to sleep. Been known to have the ice gel pack on my feet and neck and the heat pad under my lower back. Sometimes the gel first followed by the heat pad. One to reduce swelling or numb the pain then the other to relax the area.

 

[Beekissed]

Yep, I get that totally. Heat pad would be the better and the lamps create lighting that isn't that great for them anyway. I just have a phobia after watching our home burn when I was in sixth grade. Something a person has a hard time not worrying about in years following.

But then I DO many times fall asleep using my heating pad on myself. In flare ups it is the only way I CAN get to sleep. Been known to have the ice gel pack on my feet and neck and the heat pad under my lower back.

Sometimes the gel first followed by the heat pad. One to reduce swelling or numb the pain then the other to relax the area.

You and I share that in common. Watched our house burn when I was just 4. Mom and I were the only ones at home at the time. We lost everything except for their important papers and some pictures she was able to get out of the house. The scariest thing about it was seeing my mother crying and not being able to comfort her.