Help!!

[kloeandTizzy]

My teacher gave me two baby chicks and I've been fine with them until now. I bought them a red heat lamp and when i put it infront of them they started churping loudly. I checked on them and they where standing ontop of their broader. I turner it off and now they're chirping alot and jumping out. Help please! Im scared that somethings wrong!

 

[lazy gardener]

How old are they? They need the temperature under the lamp to be around 90 degrees if they are less than a week old. You need to cover the brooder with a wire cover so they can't get out. If you don't want to use a heat lamp, you can use a heating pad that will stay on 24 hours/day. Many of the newer ones are designed to shut off automatically after 2 hours, so that model won't work. You can read a bit of "how to" in the second article listed in my signature. (If you use a heating pad, you will need to make a wire frame for it so the chicks can get under it safely without getting caught in it.) If you stick with the heat lamp, you may get by with a 60 watt incandescent bulb. You definitely don't need a 250W heat lamp in your house. You also need to be very sure it is secured by at least 2 methods, that it can't be knocked loose, and that it is not close enough to any surface to make that surface hot. The other end of the chick's box needs to be much cooler than 90 degrees. it's very easy to kill chicks by giving them too much heat.

You can go to the learning center and read every thing you need to know about raising chicks. I hope you have your parents helping you with this project.