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

[perchie.girl]

Now isn't that a terrific anecdote! Brooding large numbers of chicks has always interested me, not that I'd ever need to do it.

My uncle had a chicken farm in Lucerne Valley, CA, and he used those big umbrella brooders that I believe operated on kerosene. The chicks all huddled underneath. He raised the brooders as the chicks grew and needed less heat. He had several of these in each barn, and they measured around five feet in diameter. He had three or four huge barns. Thousands of chicks.

My five cousins never once made a pet out of a single chicken the entire time they were growing up on that chicken farm. He gave me and my sisters some chicks one time to bring home and raise, but weasels got them the first night.

Ah, memories.

My grandpa was a sharecropper... Those chicks were for feeding the migrant farm hands. Grandma would cook about five at a time for the workers lunch... The hands got so much per what ever they were harvesting and lunch.... Dad had four sisters and they worked the fields along with the workers... He remembers being a toddler and thrown on a bale of cotton with his bottle and being dragged through the cotton fields while they harvested cotton.

deb

 

[Blooie]

Hit 100 degrees here today, and although that's the highest it's been it ain't been cool the other days, either. Been in the 90s every day since we got back from South Dakota. The chickens were suffering in this heat. So today when we were in Billings we picked up this personal mister at Home Depot. It worked slick! We set it up just outside the run, aimed in, and despite the word "personal" it cooled a large section of the run very well. At first the chickens freaked out, but it sure didn't take them long to figure out that the area where the mister was aimed felt pretty doggone good! No power required - the hose does the work. It didn't saturate everything, possible because there was just enough wind to disperse the mist, but I could tell a difference almost right away! They went from running from it to running into it! Here's a link to it.

http://reviews.homedepot.com/1999/2...ill-personal-stand-mister-reviews/reviews.htm

 

[Diannastarr]

I'm out of ideas for saving this Legbar chick. Sunny is eight days old but no bigger than the day she arrived in the mail. She won't eat the chick feed, tried fermenting it with no results, no longer is interested in the tofu. She got excited about eating several meal worms a few hours ago, but she doesn't seem to have the energy for even those now.

She seems to be losing weight, if anything. He neck is skinny and eyes are beginning to bug out due to her losing what fat she had under her skin. If the Corid was fighting cocci, it seems she would be getting better, not worse.

I am afraid I have a chick that is simply a victim of failure to thrive, and it's inevitable I will lose her.

 

[aart]

Hit 100 degrees here today, and although that's the highest it's been it ain't been cool the other days, either. Been in the 90s every day since we got back from South Dakota. The chickens were suffering in this heat. So today when we were in Billings we picked up this personal mister at Home Depot. It worked slick! We set it up just outside the run, aimed in, and despite the word "personal" it cooled a large section of the run very well. At first the chickens freaked out, but it sure didn't take them long to figure out that the area where the mister was aimed felt pretty doggone good! No power required - the hose does the work. It didn't saturate everything, possible because there was just enough wind to disperse the mist, but I could tell a difference almost right away! They went from running from it to running into it! Here's a link to it.

http://reviews.homedepot.com/1999/2...ill-personal-stand-mister-reviews/reviews.htm

Yikes...I always dread the summer heat and humidity (it just knocks me out and I have no AC), tho it's been very cool here for the most part this spring.
Wonders what your ambient humidity is there?
I assume you ran the mister in the shade?

 

[Blooie]

Yikes...I always dread the summer heat and humidity (it just knocks me out and I have no AC), tho it's been very cool here for the most part this spring.
Wonders what your ambient humidity is there?
I assume you ran the mister in the shade?

Yesterday when our temp was 100 the humidity was 10%. It's semi-desert here so we cool our house by using an evaporative cooler, otherwise known as a "swamp cooler". We have to cool by putting humidity into the air, not taking it out like in more humid areas of the country.

Part of our heat issue is that this spring when we did our spruce up and took the winter plastic off the run, Ken decided he was going to put a tarp with a "reflective" side over the run. Um, not so smart. That thing traps heat in here so badly and because it's one gigantic piece I can't roll parts of it up or down. It doesn't go all the way down to the ground, so there's air flow at the bottom of it, but it's not enough. When we had landscape fabric on it last year, air flowed through it just beautifully and it provided nice shade. So after a "discussion" yesterday, we are taking the tarp down and going back to landscape fabric.

It's pretty shady out there, but there is a time span of a couple of hours where there isn't enough. There is one cattle panel width of run that has no tarp - we added the extra length after the tarp was up. That's open area is where they congregate, so I know they are too hot directly under the tarp. Keeping chickens is all about learning lessons, isn't it? The mister is partially in shade.

 

[aart]

Quote: Oh, covetousness...well kinda.
Here the humidity number usually matches the temp number, or is above it, miserable.....swamp cooling and misting doesn't really work.
Experienced misters in AZ once, brilliant and delightful.

 

[COChix]

the heat has been pretty brutal and relentless since we returned from Mexico. Hope everyone stays cool suppose to be high90's, blech . Thank god we are not in the east with all the high humidity, like Blooie we have low humidity typically in Colorado.

I will be adding frozen water bottles to all the bucket waters mid day and adding the frozen gallon jugs in the coop tonight.

Last night I blocked the nest boxes from the littles and put some solar lights in the coop so they could see where the bottom roosts were. Of course they were pretty upset, those brats! Anyway, they all kept going in and out of the coop chirping and carrying on. The adults on the highest roosts were not amused. One brave little thought she would be smart and get up to the top roosts, of which she was swiftly evicted. They finally settled on the ladder up to the high roosts, the perch along the next box row and another roost the same height on the opposite side of the coop. Took them a bit but they got it!

PS - when does a mom typically fledge her chicks? Ours will be 1 month soon. Mom and chicks are separate from flock and I was wondering when she will fledge them. Is it possible she is waiting until she rejoins the flock and roosts with them? I have been waiting for her to fledge the babies and then those babies will be going elsewhere and I have NO plans to integrate them with our flock. They are not big enough to be out free ranging yet so they have been in the run and small coop with mama. Thanks

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
If you can zip tie a lenght of PVC to the bottom edge of the tarp.... Get good stout stuff at least two inches in diameter of you can... Now you can stand in the middle and roll the whole tarp up Once you get it up use two or three pieces of cord fastened to the cattle panel then tossed over the top and fastened on the off side to keep it in place... When it comes time to lower it again just loosen the cord on the off side and let the tarp roll back down... Kind of a poor mans roll up blinds.

here is an example showing bamboo blinds



Bamboo blinds are stiff in one direction... Hence the reason you need to use PVC pipe at the core of your tarp.



deb

 

[mojavemike1]

I have just finished my Mama Cave, made out of a wire dish drying rack that you have on the side of the kitchen sink...got it from the Dollar Market.
I cut all the side wires except the ones at the front (large opening), bent it down to get the slope, and wired it in place to stop it springing back...taped all the cut wires and bent the dish supports flat.
Have my heating pad on order from Amazon and the Glad Press 'n Seal for the towel.
I am incubating right now, and lockdown is 21st, so hopefully my chicks will have a nice warm cave waiting for them instead of the heat lamp.
Incidentally those 250 amp heater bulbs are expensive to use 24/7...I was shocked when I saw my electric bill

 

[perchie.girl]

I have just finished my Mama Cave, made out of a wire dish drying rack that you have on the side of the kitchen sink...got it from the Dollar Market.
I cut all the side wires except the ones at the front (large opening), bent it down to get the slope, and wired it in place to stop it springing back...taped all the cut wires and bent the dish supports flat.
Have my heating pad on order from Amazon and the Glad Press 'n Seal for the towel.
I am incubating right now, and lockdown is 21st, so hopefully my chicks will have a nice warm cave waiting for them instead of the heat lamp.
Incidentally those 250 amp heater bulbs are expensive to use 24/7...I was shocked when I saw my electric bill

Oh my goodness this is brilliant and inexpensive too and you can fasten the whole thing down on a board haul it all out and hose it off in the sun.....

deb