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

[alibabba]

Great thread, lots of ideas!

I have 25 week olds shipped from a hatchery chilling in a baby pool with a Xmas tablecloth (on omg, sand) With an old heating pad over top of wire cabinet racks (the ones you can get in the $store to keep more stuff in the cabinets) Nothing fancy. Very thrown together.

The room temp I kept a little higher than normal cuz I was nervous from all that reading....Chicks must be at 95 then 90 then 80 deg. with special humidity. (No more of that, keeping it around 70)


The chicks are wonderful. No pasty butt, no weak ones. I did lose one on day 2. It looks like some type of accident... shipping stress or possibly to much vitamin water from a new mom (No more of that!) Everyone else is perfectly fine.

They figured out immediately what to do. I think the center is around 80ish on the floor of the cave with a cheap reptile cage therm.

I also play sundown God.

They are silent and sleeping until dawn. So basically already coop trained.


??? Weather is getting nice here, 50's at night. I want to put them outside asap to build the good immunities. People say that Mama Hen raised chicks (outside) are healthier, more robust.
It sounds like the heat pad set up in my little doghouse coop would work. What do you think? Dare I try?

 

[aart]

Great thread, lots of ideas!

I have 25 week olds shipped from a hatchery chilling in a baby pool with a Xmas tablecloth (on omg, sand) With an old heating pad over top of wire cabinet racks (the ones you can get in the $store to keep more stuff in the cabinets) Nothing fancy. Very thrown together.
.......
??? Weather is getting nice here, 50's at night. I want to put them outside asap to build the good immunities. People say that Mama Hen raised chicks (outside) are healthier, more robust.
It sounds like the heat pad set up in my little doghouse coop would work. What do you think? Dare I try?

As long as the coop is predator proof and the power source is secure.
You can also bring in a clump of grass with some dirt attached from the yard to get a head start on those 'outdoor immunities'. they'll have fin playing with it after they get over the fright of that thing in their brooder.

 

[MissouriCowgirl]

I have mine inside but I also have I roll of cardboard stuff that I got in a starter kit at TSC and when it's nice out I take mine outside and put them in the cardboard pen in a grassy spot. They love it

 

[Blooie]

Great thread, lots of ideas!

I have 25 week olds shipped from a hatchery chilling in a baby pool with a Xmas tablecloth (on omg, sand) With an old heating pad over top of wire cabinet racks (the ones you can get in the $store to keep more stuff in the cabinets) Nothing fancy. Very thrown together.

The room temp I kept a little higher than normal cuz I was nervous from all that reading....Chicks must be at 95 then 90 then 80 deg. with special humidity. (No more of that, keeping it around 70)


The chicks are wonderful. No pasty butt, no weak ones. I did lose one on day 2. It looks like some type of accident... shipping stress or possibly to much vitamin water from a new mom (No more of that!) Everyone else is perfectly fine.

They figured out immediately what to do. I think the center is around 80ish on the floor of the cave with a cheap reptile cage therm.

I also play sundown God.

They are silent and sleeping until dawn. So basically already coop trained.


??? Weather is getting nice here, 50's at night. I want to put them outside asap to build the good immunities. People say that Mama Hen raised chicks (outside) are healthier, more robust.
It sounds like the heat pad set up in my little doghouse coop would work. What do you think? Dare I try?

What a system, huh? I don't think keeping the room temp higher is important. Outside under Agatha Scout was often exploring the run even when it we had sub-zero temps. And when we put him back outside after his injury, he had no flockmates for warmth, just Mama Heating Pad and his cave, and he did fine even at -4 degrees. So the room temp is really unimportant....if they get chilly they know where to go to warm up and as soon as they are warm they just pop right back out again. And ahh, yes...the silent nights are wonderful!

x2 on the clump of dirt. Mine get a clump from their first day home, even though they are on a dirt/litter floor out in the run. At first they avoid it like the plague but it only takes one to investigate and peck at it. Before you know it you can barely find the clump but they are all scratching and dust bathing in the remnants. Helps build up immunity.

As for your question. Well, I can't (and won't) tell you to put them out. Mine are out and have been out since they were tiny tiny chicks. It's been cold too. I mean way cold - in the 20s with a couple of teens tossed in as a test. We lost power out there a couple of nights ago and don't know how long it was out. Winds were gusting to 60 mph and the snow was coming down sideways. We slept through the outage until the sound of the power coming back on woke Ken at 4 am. Panic!! I had one week old chicks out there! So we ran out and got the heating pad turned back on. The straw packed inside, around and on top of the cave had held just enough residual warmth to sustain them. It wasn't "heat", it was just warmth. But they were up eating, drinking, and running around the next morning, none the worse for wear. I don't know if they would have survived if they'd had a heat lamp on them. Once the lamp went out, it would have cooled down quickly and completely. So whether you put yours out in the dog house with the cave set up is totally up to you. They'd more than likely be just fine, but I don't want to be the one to tell you to toss them out if you truly don't feel ready yet.

 

[henless]

??? Weather is getting nice here, 50's at night. I want to put them outside asap to build the good immunities. People say that Mama Hen raised chicks (outside) are healthier, more robust.
It sounds like the heat pad set up in my little doghouse coop would work. What do you think? Dare I try?

I would bring them dirt from the areas they will be living in to the brooder when mine were little. They loved it! They would get in the cake pan and take a dust bath. I never kept them in the house, but out in a watermelon box in my husbands shop for the first two weeks. Then they went out in the coop brooder.

 

[alibabba]

n dthenI read about the power outage emergency. Yikes. Still, in keeping with the point of heatlamp or heatpad....power is still an issue. either way.

Thanks! Clod of dirt will keep them busy and be good for them too!

I will start taking them out a bit at a time before the first full night. How to take 25 in and out efficiently....bucket, laundry tub, wheelbarrow ???

The little coop is pretty tight, ill extend the electric polywire so predators can't get in to test it. I would love to be able for me and kids to play on the grass with the babies.

 

[Blooie]

n dthenI read about the power outage emergency. Yikes. Still, in keeping with the point of heatlamp or heatpad....power is still an issue. either way.

Thanks! Clod of dirt will keep them busy and be good for them too!

I will start taking them out a bit at a time before the first full night. How to take 25 in and out efficiently....bucket, laundry tub, wheelbarrow ???

The little coop is pretty tight, ill extend the electric polywire so predators can't get in to test it. I would love to be able for me and kids to play on the grass with the babies.

The power outage actually reinforced my belief in this entire system. If I had been relying on a heat lamp and the power went out, they would have suddenly been plunged into darkness, which they wouldn't have been used to at night. And a heat lamp heats an entire space - once it suddenly goes out that entire space cools off really quickly and there's no residual once it reaches ambient air temperature in the brooder. With the cave having straw inside, around and on top of the heating pad, it acted like insulation and kept the inside of it at least warm, if not heated. They were able ot snuggle in the far back corner in the cave and that was the warmest spot in there. I'm not sure in that wind and with the snow we got that all of them would have survived under a non-functioning heat lamp. The run is still covered in plastic, so that blocked a lot of the wind, but because it was cold and overcast most of the day it wasn't warm in there by any stretch of the imagination.

There is also the added benefit in that they were used to getting chilly now and then. They spend more time out of the cave than in it so they are used to running around all over their pen in the much cooler air and just ducking under the cave for a quick warm-up, then running back out again. So chilly wasn't a foreign concept to them.

 

[Beekissed]

Agreed! Those folks using the heating pad, be sure and check it when you go to feed that the light is still shinin' and especially after a power out, no matter how brief, as it will have to be turned back on afterwards. That's the only drawback I can find with this method...the heat lamp comes back on when the power does, but the heating pad will need to be reactivated per the controls at that time.

 

[Blooie]

Agreed! Those folks using the heating pad, be sure and check it when you go to feed that the light is still shinin' and especially after a power out, no matter how brief, as it will have to be turned back on afterwards. That's the only drawback I can find with this method...the heat lamp comes back on when the power does, but the heating pad will need to be reactivated per the controls at that time.

Absolutely. That is a definite drawback, because as you said once the power comes back on the heat lamp goes back on. Not so with the heating pad. And you not only have to remember to turn it back on, you also have to remember to hit that "stay on" button. But I figure if we'd had a power outage of any duration I'd have wanted to check on the chicks no matter what the heat source was. So as long as I'm going to be out there anyway...

 

[Cottage Chicks]

Definately going to try this!