Heating and brooder setup week 3

[Katsouth]

These chicks are three weeks old. Interestingly, we have two salmon favorolles and one is the biggest and one is the smallest. Sometimes in the mornings, all four of the fairly normal sized chicks are on top of the radiant heat just chilling out but the smallest is still underneath. I feel bad for her. It’s probably because she’s colder than the rest of them. The radiant heat has been hard to get to the right temperature, it’s probably a crappy heater but we try to keep it about 80, although it seems to like to hover around 83. On the other side of the brooder we are using a heat lamp because our house gets pretty cold and we are trying to keep that temp around 78 by the roosting bar. I feel like this gives them a warm place to play and explore but not as warm as under the lamp. There is one box of dirt that I believe the consistent temp is around 75 in case they are too hot they have somewhere to go. Without the red lamp, our house gets down to like 64 sometimes and I’m worried they will be too cold.

First of all, it seems like they are not necessarily hot when they are sitting on top of the radiant heat, they just like it up there. Nobody’s panting or acting weird. But they leave out the little one. When the entire brooder did get down to about 77 they seemed cold and that was a couple days ago. I read that they can have cold spots of down to about 60 so long as they still have a warm spot but to me that seems really cold!

I’m probably overthinking this but my questions are

1. Why are they sleeping on top? I thought they like to sleep underneath like a mother
2. Sometimes they do sleep on the roosting bars now so maybe that’s why?
3. Are they purposefully leaving that little one out? She can’t fly or climb as agile as the rest of them but she’s not even a runt, just slower to learn
4. Since we are technically in the middle of week three, I think it should be around 75 to 80 in there but do they need a colder spot to be able to escape to? They don’t seem to be craving it, but again I have no idea.
5. Is there something wrong with the setup? As you can see, we thought it might be a little bit too drafty because there is a lot of open chicken wire so we have cardboard boxes blocking most of it on the front side.
6. We would love to be able to ditch one of the heaters but we have all this anxiety about it!! Put my mind at ease or tell me what to do

The first pic is of them sleeping on top
The second is the set up from the top
The third is the set up from the side view from the little window we have unblocked
The fourth is the old brooder that they seemed to be growing out of
The fit is the brand new brooder before it had the other stuff in it. It’s a lot less empty

 

[ExoticPetOwner]

1. Chickens love spreading out and sleeping in warm places. If they're all clumping together a lot, it might mean that the brooder is a little too cold. The temp does change as they age, though.
2. Some chickens like sleeping closer to the warmth, some just prefer the roosting bars.
3. They won't necessarily leave her out. She might not be able to get up there, she might not want to be up there, or she's not comfortable with the others. She may be on the lower side of the pecking order, or being bullied, so watch out for that.
4. Every week starting with 95 degrees, you should be lowering the heat by 5. It should be around 85 degrees at week three.
5. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. They need ventilation, as long as they have the heating lamp, they should be fine. Make sure no one can get their head stuck in the wire openings. Maybe add a tarp bottom or something to not allow the wood to get wet so it'll help preserve the brooder for longer and eliminate any bad odor that might come from it.
6. Try ( slowly ) taking one of the heaters out and see how they do. If they cuddle up too much, they're cold, If they stay away from the lamp, they might be too warm.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Brooder is hotter than it needs to be. The heat lamp is artificially heating the entire area up so they can't completely get away from the heat, which they're growing out of by this point anyhow. I put 3 day old chicks outside with lows in the 40s (highs around mid 60s), and they're fine with just a heating pad like that. By week 2 they're mostly sitting on top of the pad and even starting to sleep overnight like that. I have them fully off heat at 4 weeks of age, even chicks without good feathering have done fine like that.

Given that the smallest is struggling, keep an eye on her to see how she's doing without the lamp, she may need extra support.

Or conversely take away the heat plate and rely on the heat lamp only, as that may give the smallest one more temperature variance to choose from. Again, you may need to adjust depending on how she does.