5 week olds all crowed on top of each other at night

[newimaging]

So I still have our 16 chicks inside, they are about 5 weeks old now. A few days ago I removed the heating lamp completely, since the room is always at 72 degrees day and night. Its our heating room.
Now I can actually turn the light off at night so they can have it completely dark. What I noticed is once I turn the light of at night, they all start chirping away, after a few minutes when I check on them they are all 16 of them in a 1 square foot area, literally sitting on top of each other. When the light is on, they all roam around the pen, so it can`t be that they are cold. I also build them little rosts by putting a few 2x4's in there, but they are just cramped in a corner.
After a few minutes they stop chirping and seem to be content and go to sleep.
Is this just a cuddling thing which my bet is ? Or are they afraid of the dark ? I am just curious. Its pretty cute.

 

[Judy]

They will definitely cuddle to sleep when they are young. They act like they have to be touching at least one other chick. They will also chirp in the dark when first exposed to it; you can have a pretty noisy night the first night, but they do get used to the dark and will rest better in a dark room or coop in time.

The trick is to differentiate this cuddling from piling. If they are really too cold, they will make a pile of as many as they can balance, one on top of the other. The result, unfortunately, is some on the bottom will be suffocated. Sad to say, I have seen both. It's been a lot of years since I saw the piling death, but you don't forget something like that quickly. (It didn't help much that they were not my chicks.) Finding one stretched out partly on top of another, as if the bottom one were his mattress, is far from the same thing.

 

[eagrbeavr]

I would imagine being introduced to the dark suddenly couldve thrown'm a little. I know people say the white heat light is fine but I couldnt take it .It was like the sun glaring in constantly so I got a red light and I noticed they quieted down quickly. They seemed more content with it. Also I felt better giving them some sort of night cycle.