Chicks piling on top of each other

[Green Acres farmer]

I have some 6 week old chicks that we just moved outside. The coop we have for them is about 65 degrees but, at bedtime, they all fight to pile on top of each other in a corner. Some even fight to get UNDER the pile. In the morning, we have found 9 dead over the last few days. I assume they suffocated, but some appeared to have a broken neck. We have a heat lamp in the middle (away from the corners) and a space heater but that doesn’t seem to help any. What kind of behavior is this? I put them on the roost but they jump down and re-join the pile. How can I get them at stop?

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

Do you have a thermometer you can use to see what temperature it is inside of their brooder?

 

[Green Acres farmer]

Yes. It shows 65*. If they were cold, wouldn’t they gather under the heat lamp rather than the corner?

 

[tribalacres]

Did you hatch them yourself or did you get them from a hatchery?

 

[Green Acres farmer]

From a hatchery. For the first 5 weeks, we had them in a brooder in the house. This last Monday we moved them to the “nursery” which is a small room under the stairs in the barn. The nights are still chilly so we put a space heater in there which has kept it warm.

 

[tribalacres]

We have had this happen twice with our last two buys from a different hatchery we have never used in the past, so we’ve noticed that when it’s their time to move out to a bigger place they are freezing cold still and we live in Florida. No such thing. . Of course it’s different in the chicken world, but we’ve raised over 2,000 meat chickens and man I promise It was a bad batch (or two) from the hatchery. Now of course I could Be comparing apples to oranges but just thought I would ask the hatching question.

 

[rosemarythyme]

They pile because it's comforting - at 6 weeks old with such warm ambient temperatures they don't need heat at all. That said, how many chicks do you have in there? You might need to separate them up into smaller groups if there's so many that they're smothering each other.

 

[AprilsZoo]

They pile because it's comforting - at 6 weeks old with such warm ambient temperatures they don't need heat at all. That said, how many chicks do you have in there? You might need to separate them up into smaller groups if there's so many that they're smothering each other.

Perhaps divide into 2 or 4 sections with the lamp still heating the center.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Perhaps divide into 2 or 4 sections with the lamp still heating the center.

They really don't need the lamp (especially since having light on 24/7 can make them crazy, as it interrupts sleep), but yes depending on size of the group they should be split in half, if not more, depending on total number.

I'd aim for no more than 20, maybe 25 chicks, per sectioned group.

 

[aart]

They pile because it's comforting - at 6 weeks old with such warm ambient temperatures they don't need heat at all. That said, how many chicks do you have in there? You might need to separate them up into smaller groups if there's so many that they're smothering each other.

Ditto Dat.

Wonders if something spooked them?