About to get some chicks....

[gg706]

Hi there! I'm new to the forum and was wondering if anyone has bantam chicks for sale?

what kind of bantam chicks? decide what breed of bantam chicks you want and then put that breed into the search and it will pull up threads on that breed....find a good active thread and I am sure you will find breeders of those birds on the breeds thread. That would be a better place to post your search for bantam chicks.
BTW....

 

[earlybird10842]

It looked like we would have to wait until July to get chicks, but by a few extraordinary turns of events, we are geting some TOMORROW!!

 

[frenchiegirl21]

This post gave me a good laugh to start my day! I love it! We all come up with GREAT reasons to add more chickens! Chicken math at it's finest!

I'm glad I could make you laugh!!!! Here is a picture of my nine little ones. They have a thing for sleeping in their feed pan lol In 8 days there should be 25 more chicks to join them!

 

[gg706]

They are SO cute! I love little fluffy chicks! Mine are going thru the ugly stage right now!
That is AWESOME earlybird! I am so glad you will be getting your babies tomorrow!

 

[earlybird10842]

Thanks!

 

[TwinWillowAcres]

No, not looking to stir things up. I'm into commercial (read: efficient) agriculture, but I guess that's not what 99% of the people on this forum are into

Yes, I know this is for "backyard chickens" BUT a lot of what we know about animals comes from commercial producers who raise these animals large scale and who have experience with 1000s of these animals.

As for a heat lamp--I believe I stated this in another thread. I worked at a petting farm back in October for their fall season. I was the animal manager's right-hand man (err, woman)...I would clean pens/stalls/chicken coops/lots, I would feed all the critters, and I would help process the new babies born. I was also responsible for checking the incubator and moving newly hatched chicks into a brooder. It was basically an incubator with a shelf with a cage and they would stay there for a day. Kids could peer through and look at newly hatched chicks, or look into the incubator and watch chicks hatch. After a day, chicks were moved into the brooder box (or if there wasn't enough room, they'd be moved in with the broody hen). They did not have a source of heat. Brooder box had shavings as bedding. This brooder box was used so adults could pick up the chicks so the kids could pet them. (Kids weren't allowed to hold the chicks.) NO chicks were lost when kept in the brooder box. The only chicks we lost were the ones in a stall with a broody hen. Based on this experience, with hatching out and brooding well over 120 chicks (we had at least 4 hatch every day), I believe chicks can be successfully brooded without a heat lamp. Chicks were not huddled together nor were they acting cold. They were scattered about, but mainly they were hanging out where their food was! Also with this experience, I have become a successful chicken wrangler, lol, catching the 'big chicks' and putting them in boxes with holes in them so the animal manager could take them to the auction to pay for their feed.

I will be getting chicks tomorrow, but I'm scheduled to work 9-5 tomorrow. So I have to stop by after work rather than before. I hope they have some left!

 

[Bellatrixed]

I'm not trying to start anything, but I just find it hard to believe that chicks can survive without a heat source. Or let me rephrase--if they do *survive*, I imagine it can't be very healthy or comfortable for them.

My chicks are in a warm room in the house. I've been going through a bit of a hassle with lights--they're either too hot or too cold, and when they're too cold, the chicks huddle under them and get noisy. When they have done this, the temperature has only dropped to about 80 before I adjust it again. (As an aside, I finally did get the heat figured out--just took a few days of troubleshooting).

Point being, if chicks get really cold and unhappy in 80 degee conditions with a light shining on them, I find it impossible to believe they'd be happy or thrive without any light at all and subject to room temperature or worse.

Or in other words, just because I'm sure it is possible to brood them without a light, but certainly not commonplace or ideal for the chickens, why do it? Heat lamps aren't very expensive. And despite what you said about efficiency... lights are efficient and are used by the big factory farms. It isn't a pampered house chicken thing--it's just standard poultry brooding practice, whether you have 1,000 or 2 to brood.

 

[frenchiegirl21]

TwinWillow,

Where do you live? I live in Texas, and I never use a heat lamp in the middle of the summer because it's 100 degrees outside! The added heat from the lamp causes the chicks to drown themselves in the waterer. I do use a red bulb to prevent pecking, but it doesn't give off any heat.

 

[gg706]

Are you sure the brooder box was not heated by another source besides an obvious heat lamp? If they are being commercially brooded the box is probably plugged in and being kept warm. As I stated earlier IF raising chicks without a heat source was sucessful, we all would raising our chicks in that manner. It is not fun having a heat lamp plugged in, the risk of fire is scary but necessary for the chicks. The cost of running a heat lamp is cheaper than the chicks you are going risk losing as a result of not brooding them properly.
Commercial practices are not practical on the homestead. Even gardening in the backyard has changed from planting in rows to spacing plants more efficiently. The results are more produce, less work, and more people growing gardens to provide food for their family. I believe in the end you will be suprised at the mortality rate of the chicks with no lamp , as well as the cost to feed the chickens that survive keeping them in cages.

 

[debid]

Yep, look at the old Brower metal brooder in another thread. It has a heater and a curtain, not a heat lamp. That's not the same as being unheated and the term "brooder" implies heat. It's so easy to see something, misinterpret what you've seen, and base your opinions on that misinterpretation. I hope the OP does some more research on brooding chicks. I don't think there is a book out there advising that chicks don't need warmth.