Introduction

Date sort Score sort
luvmysweetgirls

luvmysweetgirls

Hatching
5 Years
Sep 10, 2014
6
0
7
Hello All,

My name is Robyn. I live on the central coast of California. I just acquired three chicks this past Monday.....a Golden Sexlink and an Australorp (both 1 week old) and a Barred Rock (2 weeks old.) I am raising them in a "Backyard Brooder" box. Two days in and all is going well. They are eating, drinking and doing cute things baby chickens do I guess :) I have a couple of concerns - it's extremely hot here right now (100 degrees today and more to come over the next week or so.) I had raised the heat lamp up quite high away from them but noticed this afternoon that they were definitely hot and uncomfortable - slight panting, wings held away a little. I quickly turned the lamp off completely and set a cooler and ceiling fan on the lowest setting(s) with just an overhead light on. They seemed much more comfortable....chirping and moving about their box. Is this okay? I'm so ridiculously attached to them already I would be just heartbroken if I did anything to cause them harm. I have a lot of other questions but for the purpose of not being annoying in my first post, I'll stop here LOL! Many thanks for any advice. (My girls are named Julia, Agnes, and Margot.)

Sincerely,

Robyn
 
Hi Robyn do you mean they are living outside in a brooder box? Inside or outside if it is 100 degrees outside, they probably don't need any heat lamp except when temperatures drop (I assume) at night. Our summer temps(Illinois) usually are 20 degrees lower at night, than daytime highs. I've never been to California or most other states, so don't know what you have to work with.

Chicks are adorable - watching is considered "chicken TV"
 
Thanks for the advice diva! They are not outside - they are in my son's bedroom! Out night time temp is expected to be about 52. I think I will turn the cooler off completely and leave the ceiling fan on low and the overhead light on instead of the heating lamp. Tricky stuff keeping these babies comfortable. I guess now my television viewing will mostly be limited to "chicken tv!"

Cheers!

Robyn
 
Thank you hennible - I did read the baby chick section and it was very helpful. Thank you for saying my baby is cute :) That's Julia, my little Australorp.
 
Hello there and welcome to BYC!
frow.gif


You are going to need to cool them down. 100 degrees is way too hot. When poultry start to pant, they are in danger. You can put an ice pack in the corner of the brooder to keep the air cool, run a fan near the top of the brooder but not on them to help move the cool air of the ice packs. Watch the temp carefully. Change the water often with cooler water. Babies can tolerate ice water like adults can, but keep the water on the cool side. Do all you can to lower the temp. This is way too high for these babies.

You might post this in our Raising Baby Chicks section where you will get more input on keeping them cool...https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/11/raising-baby-chicks

Good luck! I know how attached to these little fuzz balls you can get.
 
Hi TwoCrows,

Thank you so much for the advice. I'm sorry if I was unclear......I didn't mean the temp inside the box was 100 degrees, but our summer days here are topping out at 100 which, of course, makes our house hot. I don't want to run our central air because that would make it too cold so I have a free standing a/c unit in the "babies room" but it's far away from their box so as not to be too cold. I was hoping that combined with the ceiling fan on low, that I could keep the air moving and the box at a comfortable temp. I also switched out the heat lamp for a normal 60 watt bulb and this morning they are full of chirps and mischief :) which I'll take as a sign they are happy. I gave them a little mashed up boiled egg last night which they absolutely loved too. Sweet, sweet girls....I just love them.

Thank you everyone. Hope I'm getting this chick raising thing right!

Robyn
 
Hello :frow and Welcome To BYC! Cute chick! You've gotten some good advice above. When the temps outside are this up and down it is hard to keep the brooder/room temps stable, just keep watching the chick's behavior and adjusting things like you are doing... if you can make the brooder bigger that might help also, so there is more room for lower temps away from the heat.
 
Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

If the temps are still 100 outside you should hold out on long field trips outside for a bit. Chicks can overheat very easily and will cook if they are exposed to the hot sun for even a little bit. If the house is extremely hot then you many need to run AC near to their brooder. Make sure it's not flowing directly into their brooder though as they can get chills very easily too.

Good luck!
 

Similar threads

M
Hatchlings are here! Concerned about temperatures
Replies
5
Views
493
Kiki
Kiki

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom