Hello All

Pics
Date sort Score sort
TimmG said:
(1) Are you new to chickens / when did you first get chickens? -I am new to chickens. I have been dreaming of having them for years, but couldn't until we bought our first house.

(2) How many chickens do you have right now? -0

(3) What breeds do you have? -none. But I want to start with egg layers, and progress to multi purpose.

(4) What are your favorite aspects of raising backyard chickens? -the egg production, and then the meat. Raising your own food is better for you and it will teach my kids respect for the animal that we eat.

(5) What are some of your other hobbies? - gardening, home steading

(6) Tell us about your family, your other pets, your occupation, or anything else you'd like to share. Married to a beautiful wife, we have 3 children 12, 5, and 2.5 and one on the way in August. We have 2 dogs Cheddar and Biscuit. I work for Northrop Grumman as an Electronic Manufacturing Specialist. I am starting my flock this year. I hope to add quail, pheasant, and peacocks to my menagerie, maybe ducks.

(7) Bonus: How did you find BYC, how long have you known about BYC, and what made you finally join our awesome community? :D- found through Google search. I have a question about brooder temps (which I will try to post in correct thread)
Click to expand...
Hi and welcome. Northrop Grumman - so are you in Maryland like me?
9A06C6A3-7081-4F02-B00F-8C8A682D5255.jpeg
 
Hello and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.

I'm going to be that person...
Those guides are just that, very loose guides.

I have raised chicks out in a coop when temps dipped into the low 20s at night. Those chicks were not kept in an environment where some or even most of the area was 95F. They had a brooder plate with an old bath towel thrown over it to make a cave. When they were chilled, they darted under the plate. When they warmed up, they darted out to pig out at the chick feed trough.

I've had a batch of 8 chicks under a hen in the coop during a big, blowing snow storm, again in the 20s.

Watch the chicks. If they are huddled together as close to the heat source as possible and cheaping loudly, they are cold. Lower the lamp.

If they are sprawled out and lethargic as far from the heat source as they can get, they are overheating. Raise the lamp.

On the subject of lamps, they are intense and hard to control and you cannot turn off the dang light! Brooder plates or mommay heating pads are far superior and safer heat sources. Obviously a hen is best. You need to be careful trapping too much heat in those metal water troughs.

ETA: the neat Flir thermal image of a fully feathered hen vs roughly 2 week old chicks to clearly demonstrate that those fully feathered pullets do not need that heat source.
1738926232833.png
 
Last edited:
Welcome to BYC. I agree with @DobieLover
My chicks, hatched by hens and bought, have been raised outdoors, in every season. They do need a heat source, but you don't want them getting too warm. I've always used a MHP (mama heating pad) when I don't have a hen handy. If you google mama heating pad, you will find several different guides to making a heat cave. It is much safer, and more natural, than using heat lamps. I would use the heat lamps in addition to the MHP for the first 3 days, and then gradually remove the lamp heat source during the first week. They will feather out faster with the mhp than with the lamp.
 
Our brooders have black ceramic lamps with thermostats in them and a separate lamp for light. That way they're in the dark at night.

It's a bit fancier than needed for just one time doing it, but that's why we have these like this as they are both non-stop filled with chicks from spring to fall.

brooder light.jpg

thermostat.jpg

And sometimes the cat helps with keeping them warmer.
Stella guarding.jpg
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom