does everyone baby there chicks?

[MVchickens]

I am just curious as to who follows the guide of brooding chicks by lowering the temp 5 degrees every week?

In previous batches I have started birds indoors with brooders and lights and followed the temp requirements as they call it. Well this time I got a batch of 20 cornish x rocks and 10 leghorns. i started them in an old coop with open windows a hardware cloth door and a 60 watt bulb. After about a week i could tell the difference between the two breeds so i split them up. Leghorns in a small A-frame tractor and cornish in a larger tractor. The temps are about mid 60's at night and mid 70's during the day here so I gave both tractors a lamp after a few days I could tell the chicks didnt really use the light so in both tractors I took them out. Now remember they are 1.5 weeks old still mostly fluff. Its 60's at night. They are completly fine and happy. We must really baby our chicks. They are a lot tougher than wee think.

 

[yinepu]

I don't baby mine.. I do check on them and let them tell me if they are too hot or too cold.. actually i think the last time i had a thermometer in a brooder was when I was about 5 years old..
With the temps here in Texas being in the 90's and 100's it's kinda hard to lower their temps by the book.. so if they are cold and huddling they get their light.. if they are panting they get a fan. I have 43 baby chicks now (just hatched this week) who had 0 heat last night cause it was plenty hot in the house.. they just didn't need it
I rarely lose a chick... even shipped ones.. sometimes I think people get a little TOO involved and end up doing more harm than good (the incubation forum is a good example of that.. how many times have people fussed TOO much over their eggs only to have a bad hatch)...
chickens are tough... people need to learn to listen to them and watch them.. they will tell you if they are uncomfortable or not

 

[CupOJoe42]

I purposely got an EcoGlow chick brooder so that the chicks can regulate themselves and I don't have to worry about adjusting heat lamps or keeping track of what week I am on. I plan on getting a second EcoGlow because I have another batch of chicks coming and my brooder is divided into 2 sections. It's so cute to see them lined up sleeping along the front edge of the EcoGlow!

 

[catsew]

I am absolutely babying my chicks. But these are also my first ones. I checked multiple times a day the temperature for the first week to make sure they were warm enough. I even had a neighbor come check the temp when we were out one night. So far I have lowered it 5 degrees every week. They should be 5 weeks now and have lots of feathers, but nowhere near fully feathered. They go out to play in a secure area during the day when its hot, but are still inside at night since it can be 50 degrees at night.

 

[Judy]

MVchickens, that's about how it went here. Now I mostly use broodies in the coop, no heat, even with lows below freezing.

I recently had a few feed store chicks I'd bought to put under a broody (no mature roo at the time) who were rejected by the broody. I put them in their own 5' x 6' pen in the coop with one heat lamp, with temps about as you describe. It was certainly not 90 under that lamp, and they gathered under it only to nap and only at first. I had the lamp off during the day within a few days, and off entirely at 2 or 3 weeks. I turned it off because they were avoiding it. They are doing great. And no pasty butt in the coop raised chicks.

 

[Ridgerunner]

We have a lot of different people with different levels of experience in a lot of different situations. The guidelines are there to cover all of them. Are the guidelines over the top? For most of us, yes, I think almost all of them are. But for some people, they are necessary. If you follow the guidelines for temperature, they are pretty safe. If you violate them, you are not guaranteed failure. Matter of fact, much of the time you will be OK, depending on how much and how you violate them.

I keep my chicks in a brooder in the coop. One area is kept warm. The far corners are allowed to cool off as they will, sometimes 20 to 30 degrees cooler. I have enough chicks that they can pretty much keep each other warm as long as it does not get really cold. Remember that most hatcheries have minimum numbers they will ship to keep each other warm. The weather determines when I turn the heat off. My last batch was at 3 weeks for night-time and about 2 weeks for daytime. Earlier in the spring, I've gone longer. I do think they toughen themselves up by spending time in the cooler areas.

The chicks are a lot tougher than many people think. But they are still babies and do require a minimum amount of care. If you had done what you did when the temperatures were even cooler, with less chicks in each group, had not kept them warm while they got used to the cooer temperatures, or if it had set in wet, you might be singing a different tune. Different conditions require different things. The guidelines are there to try to cover all circumstances for all people.

 

[gale65]

Before I came to this forum last year I'd never heard of anyone having chicks in the house or cooking food for them or anything like that. (well other than on a certain animal planet show-no offense). We kept ours in the coop (divided off so we could use less bedding) and kept a heat lamp on them. I put a thermometer in there but it wasn't long before they had it buried in the bedding and I wasn't about to dig it out so I mostly went by how they acted. Even when our power went out and it got down to 65 when they were about 10 days old they were eating and drinking and wandering around like normal.

eta: this isn't my first time raising chicks so my original experience with them wasn't with this board. I didn't even have internet back then.

I'm not sure how I managed at the time.

 

[Katechicken]

Quote:
I also Baby my chicks as they are my first

I love my little darlings!

 

[BoltonChicken]

The chicks are a lot tougher than many people think.

Amen to that. If it is over 55 degrees at night they do not need any heat source, no matter the age. They also do not need ice water, misters, swimming areas and air conditioning during the summer. It is the owners of the chickens who apparently need all of these things as some sort of psychological crutch when they are using the chicks as a child substitute.​

 

[gale65]

Quote:
Amen to that. If it is over 55 degrees at night they do not need any heat source, no matter the age. They also do not need ice water, misters, swimming areas and air conditioning during the summer. It is the owners of the chickens who apparently need all of these things as some sort of psychological crutch when they are using the chicks as a child substitute.

Ouch. I agree with all of that up until the last sentence. I'm not one of the baby-ers but I don't agree that the ones who do are trying to compensate.