Help!!!

[centrarchid]

You are learning. Good you caught problem early. What is run date on feed?

 

[EggSighted4Life]

NOW I FEEL LIKE A BAD PARENT ....

We all have to learn somehow.

Eliminate the scratch grains. They are like candy bars.
If you want, switch to Purina Flock Raiser with 20% protein.

 

[chubby4chickens]

 

[chubby4chickens]

3 days ago. On 11/2/16 is when we added it.

 

[centrarchid]

Run date will be on package itself. Will look like a dot matrix print job.

 

[Blooie]

If your coop is completed, get them moved out. They need space, and the "victim" sure needs a place to hide and get away from the aggressor. Sometimes just the change in environment will confuse the flock dynamics enough to give the something else to think about. At 6 weeks old, especially in California, they don't need supplemental heat anymore. Overheating causes stress, and stress can bring on aggression, which then feeds on itself until you have problems you might not be able to fix.

I think with a better diet, (as others have pointed out) more space, something else to focus on, and acclimating to normal temperatures, you will probably see a change. No guarantees - these are chickens and they love to defy conventional wisdom at every opportunity. <sigh Silly chickens>

I also don't like lamps because the chickens never learn a true day/night cycle until they are suddenly faced with it, and then it spooks them. They have no clue what to do, so folks put in night lights and all kinds of "pacifiers". The very first batch of chicks I had were raised under a red lamp, and I put them out at 5.5 weeks. The first couple of nights they had the lamp in there, but they didn't even use it.....they snuggled down in front of the pop door instead of anywhere near the heat. Our temps were in the twenties. So the morning of day 3 I took the light out. They didn't even notice until the sun started going down. Then they panicked because it was getting dark and they had no clue what to do. But I put on my big girl britches and made them stick it out. They learned, and they forgave me. With lamps on 24/7, they don't get a full night's sleep, and that's regardless of what color the bulb is. I know, I know, red lights are supposed to be invisible. Um, nope, not in my opinion. Anything that emits light is still a light. And being creatures of habit, they hate change.

You are certainly NOT a bad chicken parent!! We've all had issues with our chickens of one sort or another - some of our own making, some a combination of circumstances and chicken mentality. Now I raise my chicks outdoors from the start, without a heat lamp, and despite it being spring chick raising season our springtime temperatures here in northwestern Wyoming are still in the teens. We had our first major snowfall of the year here on October 12 this year, and my first year with chicks we got our last snowfall of the season on June 6th. Yep. But my chicks are snug under their Mama Heating Pad and we have never lost one. As the sun goes down they wander into their heating pad cave and they sleep all night through, ready to get up and start a new day when the sun comes back up.

So it's not a matter of one way being right and the other making for a "bad chicken parent". It's a matter of learning what works for you and applying it. However, one thing we can all agree on - they don't stay little chicks forever and need the opportunity to learn to be chickens. You've got this!!!

 

[Little Fuzzy]

I think I read here no grains until 18 wks. Were you giving Chick grit with your grains?

 

[Little Fuzzy]

Blooie, I want to try the Mama heating pad technique next spring, bu worry about the heating pad on all night setting on top of shavings.(fire hazard?) What temp do you use on the pad?

 

[Blooie]

Blooie, I want to try the Mama heating pad technique next spring, bu worry about the heating pad on all night setting on top of shavings.(fire hazard?) What temp do you use on the pad?

It's a heck of a lot safer than a heat lamp around shavings! Think about this - even on high you can touch a heating pad. It's DESIGNED to come into contact with things. Touch a heat lamp. Yeah. The heating pad is just above the chicks' backs. It warms them by contact. It doesn't warm their entire environment. A lamp heats the walls, the brooder, the waterer, the floors - everything around it. The chicks need cool...but a heat lamp heats their entire area. It might have a cool spot way away from the heater, but in most cases that's only a couple of degrees cooler. With a heating pad, if the brooder is outside (like mine) the temperature in the brooder is the same as where it's located.....the chicks know where the heat is and duck under it for only 3 reasons - a quick warm up, security if they get spooked, and to go to sleep at night, just exactly like they would with a broody hen. One of their favorite things to do is to sit on top and watch the world go by, again just like they do with a broody hen. The rest of the time they are out exploring, learning to be chickens, and feathering. My heating pad this year was on for almost 3 months steady, being used on various batches of chicks. Yep.

Some of this year's chicks out in the brooder. It was 38 degrees and raining. You will hear me refer to one little chick that "died". She'd found a small gap that we overlooked and when we found her in the main run, she was cold, stiff, neck and feet extended. We fixed that gap immediately then I picked her little body up to dispose of it. But there was a little something, and I knew she wasn't dead yet. I brought her in and stuck her in the incubator with the eggs while hubby Ken prepared a heating pad nest for her. Today she is a big, beautiful White Orpington pullet giving me nice brown eggs. I had put her back out with the others the same day she recovered, and this was filmed the very next day. I could probably have revived her with a heat lamp too, but her heating pad nest was dark and soft and cuddly.

 

[centrarchid]

@chubby4chickens you just got hijacked.