best tips to a new chick Mom?

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You hit the nail on the head. Differing opinions, especially when expressed with common decency and courtesy as this exchange was, are amazingly helpful when someone is trying to make a decision.

Mama Heating Pad is draped over or bungee corded under a frame of some sorts. I use a bit of scrap fencing. As the chicks grow, I have a few options. I can either simply pull up on the center of the frame and make it higher, turn the temperature control down, or both. As @Welshies said, always watch the chicks' behavior and they will clearly tell you what they want. After no more than a week the chicks are spending as much time on top of it as they do under it. Even raising chicks outside in northern Wyoming when our springtime "chick season" temperatures are in the twenties, they have pretty much weaned themselves off all heat by 4 weeks old. Maybe this will help...this is one batch of chicks out of the many I've raised this way. The temperature outside dropped to 21 or so overnight and they woke up raring to go. I do have another video which shows the MHP from a different, clearer angle, but this one shows how well they do and how quickly they take to sitting on top at only a week old.

 
Blooie said:
You hit the nail on the head. Differing opinions, especially when expressed with common decency and courtesy as this exchange was, are amazingly helpful when someone is trying to make a decision.

Mama Heating Pad is draped over or bungee corded under a frame of some sorts. I use a bit of scrap fencing. As the chicks grow, I have a few options. I can either simply pull up on the center of the frame and make it higher, turn the temperature control down, or both. As @Welshies said, always watch the chicks' behavior and they will clearly tell you what they want. After no more than a week the chicks are spending as much time on top of it as they do under it. Even raising chicks outside in northern Wyoming when our springtime "chick season" temperatures are in the twenties, they have pretty much weaned themselves off all heat by 4 weeks old. Maybe this will help...this is one batch of chicks out of the many I've raised this way. The temperature outside dropped to 21 or so overnight and they woke up raring to go. I do have another video which shows the MHP from a different, clearer angle, but this one shows how well they do and how quickly they take to sitting on top at only a week old.

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Oh my goodness, HOW CUTE!! I am so excited:) they look super happy and comfortable. So straw on top of it? I've read a lot about using shavings...what is your opinion?
 
Welshies said:
Personally, I love shavings as they are easy to aerate, nice smelling, and very easy to use deep litter method with. They are cheaper in my area than other bedding, at $4 CAD for 6 cubic feet.
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Yes, I want to do the deep litter method! I have read that day old chicks should be on news paper or paper towel for the first week or two to prevent them from eating the shavings?
 
Miss Chickpea said:
Yes, I want to do the deep litter method! I have read that day old chicks should be on news paper or paper towel for the first week or two to prevent them from eating the shavings?
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No no no. Never news paper, it causes straddle or spraddle leg. Towel would be good. Some chicks eat shavings some don't- mine never did, so it's up to you.
If you want to do the deep litter method I highly suggest shavings. Cheap, easy to aerate, easy to see when dirty, and naturally very light.
Make little "lips" or ledges before doorways and chicken doors to help contain your shavings too! A 2x2 works well for me.
 
Pine shavings are wonderful, as Welshies has said. They stay dry, smell great, and a relatively inexpensive bag of them decompresses when you open it to cover a lot of territory. For chicks I'd strongly recommend large flake..and covering them with paper towels at first because a few dummy little chicks WILL try to eat them! I happened to use straw over MHP outside because of the insulating properties....and because someone gave us several bales I needed to use up! ;) This video was taken a few years ago. But pine shavings do work on top of, around, and under MHP as well.

In my coop and run, I primarily used pine shavings for deep litter at first, but found after a few years when doing a major clean out that what I had wasn't good, rich compost - it was gray pine shavings, still easily recognizable after their years in there. Well, what to do? I liked pine shavings for all the things we've outlined, but I wanted true deep litter, not deep bedding. True deep litter means decomposition. So on the advice of @Beekissed, a lady much smarter than me, with 40 years of chicken experience and the most stunningly healthy birds I'd ever seen, I switched to leaves, garden scraps and refuse, pulled weeds, pine needles, wood chips - a total hodgepodge of compostable materials....and then I did get true deep litter. But for the brooder, I still preferred shavings or straw. The chicks spend so much time on top of the heating pad cave that leaves would have quickly become matted, soaked and slippery. I don't have that issue in the coop or run, but 20 chicks in a confined area like a brooder puts a whole new spin on things! Glad you enjoyed the video! If you decide to try MHP, come on over to the thread and join the Broody Brigade. :frow
 
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