Few Chick Questions

[brettnreno]

Well my ten Buff orp chicks are three weeks old today and was wondering how long I have to keep the light on them? Also how long do you have to check them for pasty butt? I haven't had one of the ten that had any pasty butt as of yet, so I didn't think I'd need to be checking them very often. Also I have my brooder in the livning room, and I keep the house around 68-70 degrees. They have most of their feathers except on their bellies. I figured in the next week or so I could stop using the light.

 

[Jsto]

Hi there

For temperature, you move down in increments of 5. To be perfectly honest, I only followed this as a guideline in the beginning and then just started watching my chicks. They'll let you know what's right for them. If they're 3 weeks, the temperature rule says they should be at about 85 degrees, so I'd say still keep the lamp on them for a couple weeks yet. More than looking at numbers though, just listen to what they're telling you. If they're all huddled together under the lamp, they're cold. All as far away from the lamp and each other as they can get, they're hot. They should be happily scattered all over the brooder

I got to a point around 4 or 5 weeks (it was a bit later in the spring and warmer) where the light was off during the day, but on and raised high above one side of the brooder at night. Pretty much the same when I moved them to the coop at 5/6 weeks. Hope that helps!

As for pasty butt, I just stopped checking when it stopped happening basically. I don't remember exactly when it was, but probably around 3-4 weeks as their fluff was dwindling.

 

[brettnreno]

Thank you for your input.