Mama Heating Pad in the Brooder (Picture Heavy) - UPDATE

[Blooie]

Blooie, do you have time to come over to this thread https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/988190/new-baby-rooster#post_15361964 and give us some advice on how to keep a baby roo from getting lonely at night? He's a 2 week old Jersey Giant.

I'll pop over there in a minute, although I don't know what I can offer. But hard to know until I've read the posts, right? I've been swamped this week, but it's a good kinda swamped. My granddaughter, Little Diane, and her new husband are home for a visit. Yesterday we tossed some stuff into a cooler and took a little ride....left the house at 6 am, hit Yellowstone Park and the very spot where Dustin proposed to her last year, then a jaunt on down to the Grand Tetons, lunch in Jackson, a DQ ice cream in Cody, and then back home. By 9 pm we were sitting at the table playing cards!

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Awesome... I had a four by three by six Aviary... and the Parakeet hens raised em up all by themselves.... and It all started with My six year old son a laundry basket and a flock of black birds that visited... there was a beautiful blue and yellow parakeet flocking with them. Apparently they showed him the ropes of suvival in the wild....

My son saw the parakeet and asked if he could catch it.. I said sure... so off he went to get the laundry basket creeping down the fence line... he dropped the basked over the parakeet and I was a goner.....

Now I had to get a cage and feed and paraphanelia.... the parakeet was pretty tame too... probably glad to get a roof over her head... too.

I worked in a pet store as a young person so I knew what they needed... I also knew what my son needed was the birds to be outside. He had asthma then. So I invested in a small aviary from KW Cages... and we set the aviary just ouside the plate glass window for the living room. Parkeet was happy well fed... But Now I got involved..... But lonely... So I bought her a girllfirend.. and dang there was a very pretty boy in that cage too.

I got two nest boxes and perches and ladders and toys.... Oh and I made the perches out of closet rod.... a screw and washer on each end works as a clamp between the bars... And of course they had to be painted so I painted the perches and nest boxes with flowers and vines.

By the time they were done I had about twelve.... and I was on to a finch empire...

all lliving on my front porch entertaining us with songs and chirps and antics... The finches had a bigger aviary... and they were reproducing machines. I started out with five... then the button quail... and the Canarys...

I am hoping to have Canarys again when I move home

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: They look soo happy.... what a wonderful day...

deb

 

[COChix]

@Blooiebeatiful country you live in. How great you got some non-chicken family time, lol.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Everyone keeps mentioning they fear poopy little feet if the chicks get on them. This is the main reason, along with my aversion to getting it on my own feet, for keeping the poop scooped.

Also, as my chicks were napping on my lap yesterday, I was just thinking that only once did one of these chicks poop on me in this entire three-week period of handling them, and that was a dry urate, easily brushed off.

It's always been my experience that chickens would rather hold it and poop while squatting on the ground. I was holding my disabled hen Flo yesterday in my tree swing and she suddenly got restless. I put her down on the ground and immediately she pooped.

Getting pooped on is the last thing anyone needs to worry about. It happens with one-week olds frequently, but after that, they seem to be more discriminating. Besides, you can anticipate it by watching for that telltale squat, signalling the intent to poop. Just remove them to the ground when you see that move.

I'm not too grossed out about the poopy feet, but alas, my 4 and 5 week olds seem to hold their smelliest, nastiest cecal poops for when they are in my lap or on my shoulder. I swear they do it on purpose. I now have specific chick-cuddling clothes that go into the wash almost every day...

- Ant Farm

 

[lazy gardener]

Blooie, you can just see the love oozing out of those pixels.

I've done the parakeet thing too. Had a beautiful green and blue male who used to dance around on the cat's head and preen her whiskers and the tufts at the end of her ears, while murmuring "pretty bird, pretty-pretty bird! He was accompanied by a cream colored female. The sun shining on her feathers gave them a pearly blue cast. Impossible to describe. She was beautiful, but such a b!+(h! She'd pick him up by the feathers on top of his head, and toss him off the perch. What ever feed cup he was eating out of, that's the one she'd chase him away from. He was very tame. Her... no way. He absolutely adored her.

 

[sad1199]

Hello! I read the first part of your post and have a question. We have geckos who need to have a place in there cage that is about 85 to 90 degrees. They are fat and happy. Could I get a side heating pad like I have in their cages and attach it to the side of my pen in the house? Right now, I am using a huge parrot cage for my little ones. I have put cardboard around the edges and I have a heat lamp hanging down. The chicks do not hide from it. They are all over the cage. They are eight days old and I had to remove some poop off four butts today, so I am a little worried about the heat. We live in the high desert where it is very hot and dry. Our avg temp in the house is 75 to 80. My fam cries and complains sometimes, but I like it warm. Help, please??

 

[azygous]

I don't think I'd be the only one here making the observation that a heat lamp on chicks, even a week old, in a house that's already 80 is overkill, and yes, it could be contributing to pasty butt.

Since your chicks are young enough to adapt to a heating pad cave system as this thread advocates, why not ditch the heat lamp and set up a heating pad as has been discussed at great length here? It would put your worries to rest, and be so much more natural for the chicks.

 

[COChix]

I don't think I'd be the only one here making the observation that a heat lamp on chicks, even a week old, in a house that's already 80 is overkill, and yes, it could be contributing to pasty butt.

Since your chicks are young enough to adapt to a heating pad cave system as this thread advocates, why not ditch the heat lamp and set up a heating pad as has been discussed at great length here? It would put your worries to rest, and be so much more natural for the chicks.

X2 I couldn't agree more. Just raised my first batch of hatched from our flock this way. By week two we had ours outside in a coop. It got as cold as 36 one night they all did great and by week four I turned it off and week five it was gone. I know Azygous had her chicks outside right away. I couldn't be happier with the progress they made once the heat lamp was taken away. They feathered almost immediately.

 

[perilloux5]

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Hello! I read the first part of your post and have a question. We have geckos who need to have a place in there cage that is about 85 to 90 degrees. They are fat and happy. Could I get a side heating pad like I have in their cages and attach it to the side of my pen in the house? Right now, I am using a huge parrot cage for my little ones. I have put cardboard around the edges and I have a heat lamp hanging down. The chicks do not hide from it. They are all over the cage. They are eight days old and I had to remove some poop off four butts today, so I am a little worried about the heat. We live in the high desert where it is very hot and dry. Our avg temp in the house is 75 to 80. My fam cries and complains sometimes, but I like it warm. Help, please??

If it is 80°, they definitely do not need a heat lamp. At 80° mine were barely using the heat pad. Try it without the lamp and watch them, if they huddle togrther then they need some heat.