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

[AlHawk]

Cochix, my guest had the same idea and we'll actually be hitting up the city compost facility today for prepared soil. Although I'm finding my love for chickens I loooove gardening!! I can't wait for my girls to get out and enjoy the sun with me while I garden.
Blooie, I'm over the snow already.. Super over it. I was ready for winter this last fall but now with this most recent 18 inch storm that I still had to work in...I'm done.
MHP will get her dues in this weekend if we actually get the snow

WyoJax,

Word of warning from a Florida guy. My plants have been in the ground outside since Feb. I let my hens out every evening when I get home from work and all day on weekends. By the end of Mar, I couldn't figure out why my tomatoes and peppers had no blooms. Plants all looked healthy and were growing but NO BLOOMS. Well, I caught my "friends" & "helpers" one afternoon pecking away at my nice tender tomato tops. My "friends" were eating every bloom they could find! So, while they are wonderful companions while gardening, they will not help in the sense that you want them too.

Since I caught them red-beaked, I fenced off the garden and lo and behold, I now have blooms all over the place!

Have fun in that garden.

 

[Blooie]

Keep working on them

Gently of course.
Ask them how many hens provide 24x7 light.
Ask them how many hens provide an ambient temp of 95F for a week then 90F for a week etc in the entire environment the chicks are raised in.

And show them this picture of 4 day old chicks in a 70F barn. I got 7 chicks in June, as you can see not one of them is currently under the hen. But she is sitting there waiting until they want to go in her "cave" to warm up before going out again ... just like the MHP cave sits waiting.



And maybe video your quiet chicks doing chick things and ask if their chicks under heat lamps are so quiet.

Better yet show them pictures of 4 day old chicks in a wire pen, in an outside run, right with the adults, in 17 degree temps. Yeah, like that!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/yes-you-certainly-can-brood-chicks-outdoors

I'm so happy that so many of you are recognized what Patrice Lopatin, @Beekissed , and @aart (why didn't that work??) knew long ago - to watch a broody. End of conversation! I have two that hatched yesterday out of of 28 eggs - a different sad story - and guess where they're going today?

I have one, a little Cream Legbar, who had what I thought was a big inflamed naval thing going on, but it dried up overnight and can't even see it today. Must have been unabsorbed yolk sac. But when that little stinker hatched, what a mess....goop all over it, eyes glued shut, and all that goop matted the down so bad. So after realizing that it wasn't going to fluff up and open it's eyes on it's own, I gave it a warm shower. I know...I know...gasp, shudder.....but after a little pampering with the blow dryer and a little more time in the incubator to warm through and finish drying, it looked way better. Two things didn't change - still has a glued down eye, despite gently cleaning it with a warm, wet cotton ball, and now that the down is fluffed up guess what showed up on the back of the head? Yep, a big white spot! She's a he! Oh, well. @duluthralphie I need some Cream Legbar chicks, bad!!!!!! Preferably Creamettes!!

I took some photos yesterday of them in MHP. They're on my phone, and I'll get them posted shortly. There are no longer any signs of life in the other eggs, it's day 23, and I'm kinda in a quandary about how much longer I should wait. I dunno....28 eggs, 2 chicks. Got another 11 in the Brinsea, but only 2 show any veining and I have the same air cell issues I had. So I either get some chicks from somewhere or retire MHP for the year.

 

[GranolaGirl72]

Pretty sure that because my chicks are one week old and that means 90° brooder is a must, I will probably have a bunch of dead girls when I bring them in from outside where it is only 57° and I have abandoned them in a draft free screen top box with only MHP to love them....

 

[aart]

Got the small partition run lined with chicken wire and booted the ~2 week olds outside.
Carried most out 2 at a time, 'threw' a couple, one chose to fly out the pop door rather than be handled.
But they are outside and having a ball....getting them back inside later could be another Chickie Rodeo.


Cause, yeah, Dust Bath!!

Curious, but Chicken!

 

[Spinning Carrie]

Wahoo! The Post Office called me at 6:45 this morning to let me know my chicks were here. I went and picked them up and with much trepidation, opened the box (I was afraid I'd have some DOAs). I ordered 7 sexed pullets (3 Orpingtons, a Rhodebar, 2 Legbars and an Olive Egger) I was sent 11 chicks (4 Orps, 3 RB, 3LB and an OE I think. The chipmunks are hard to tell apart). They were all fiesty little things as we put them in! We dipped their beaks in Sav-a-Chick water and pushed them under Mama Heating Pad. They are in my unheated garage with the pad on 6. I caught one trying to commit chick-a-cide by getting its head caught in the underside of the painter's tape (fixed that in a hurry). They love their MHP, and have been in and out several times. We keep opening the garage door to the house to listen for distress cheeps (how we caught the chick-a-cide attempt). Here are my dues!

 

[jaslyman]

I caught one trying to commit chick-a-cide by getting its head caught in the underside of the painter's tape (fixed that in a hurry). They love their MHP, and have been in and out several times. We keep opening the garage door to the house to listen for distress cheeps (how we caught the chick-a-cide attempt). Here are my dues!

We had a similar issue with electrical tape!! Two chicks got their tiny wings all caught up in the tape. Luckily we were able to slowly, carefully, cut the tape off and I think they are both fine. But it was a scare.

We are moving our chicks (now a week old) out to the garage this weekend, and I'm trying to rustle up a used baby monitor to put in there so we can hear if there's a problem. (Well, I think *I* may have the problem, ha!)

 

[AllynTal]

...I belong to another site that is mostly about chickens, and its amazing to me how set they are on using the red light! I have mentioned the MHP a few times, and explained how it works, and received TONS of negative remarks about how cruel and mean it would be to use such little heat. They are firm believers in the red light method,,, all I can say is.... they have been blinded by the light!

I've been thinking about why people are so set on using the lamp and won't consider any other way as viable, and I think it's the same reason that folks have backyard gardens and plant everything in rows. It's a scaled down version of what the big commercial farms do, so that must be the way to do it and no other way is possible. Forget that in our small-scale operation, it's inefficient, makes unnecessary work for us and in the case of chickens, it goes against their natural instincts. If this is how the big commercials farms do it, it must be the way, yeah? I saw early on that growing in rows was not the best approach (for me. If you grow in rows and you're happy, keep doing it.) I have no big equipment that tills, plants and harvests only in a straight line, so why would I try to imitate the big farms who do have that equipment and it's the most efficient way for them to operate? Square-foot gardening and container gardening makes sense to me, and when it comes to chicks, the MHP makes so much more sense for me than a small-scale version of what the big commercial poultry farms do. The big commercial farms couldn't possibly do large-scale MHPs as efficiently as they can do heat lamps. The big farms want large scale production in the most cost-effective operation. I want happy and healthy chickens. Different priorities; different methods.

My chicks are on the way to me. They left Missouri yesterday and according to the tracking report are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I'm trying to decide if I want to wait for the call, or just show up at the post office at 6 am in anticipation of them arriving. I set everything up in the nursery coop yesterday and ran the heating pad last night. The dish I put under the water nipples is dry this morning, so no leaks. The cave ceiling is soft and warm. We've been having some rain (okay, some really severe thunderstorms) but the inside of the nursery coop is snug and dry. I put some hardware cloth over the pop door opening so I can open the pop door and let them see outside and have more natural light inside the coop before they're ready to venture outside.

I do have an aside question, though. The nursery coop is about 3 feet by 4 feet and the nursery run is about 3 feet x 6 feet. I have 15 Delaware chicks coming. How long do you all think it'll be before they outgrow the available room and need to move to the big coop?

 

[Bowldy45]

How long do you all wait to move the chicks from the brooder in the house to the coop outside? Mine are 3 days old, and got the hang of the MHP. I was thinking of moving them outside either today or tomorrow, but the cold front we have coming makes me nervous to do so.
The coop is insulated all the way around, and holds at about 50* 24/7 . There is no other heat in the coop other than the MHP The overnight temps this weekend is supposed to be in the mid 20's. I am running the MHP at the highest setting right now, but I don't want the to freeze to death either!

 

[mobius]

I've been thinking about why people are so set on using the lamp and won't consider any other way as viable, and I think it's the same reason that folks have backyard gardens and plant everything in rows. It's a scaled down version of what the big commercial farms do, so that must be the way to do it and no other way is possible. Forget that in our small-scale operation, it's inefficient, makes unnecessary work for us and in the case of chickens, it goes against their natural instincts. If this is how the big commercials farms do it, it must be the way, yeah? I saw early on that growing in rows was not the best approach (for me. If you grow in rows and you're happy, keep doing it.) I have no big equipment that tills, plants and harvests only in a straight line, so why would I try to imitate the big farms who do have that equipment and it's the most efficient way for them to operate? Square-foot gardening and container gardening makes sense to me, and when it comes to chicks, the MHP makes so much more sense for me than a small-scale version of what the big commercial poultry farms do. The big commercial farms couldn't possibly do large-scale MHPs as efficiently as they can do heat lamps. The big farms want large scale production in the most cost-effective operation. I want happy and healthy chickens. Different priorities; different methods.

GREAT analogy, I do sub-irrigated planting because...many things...and mulch and compost tea and worm bins...we are fortunate indeed as individuals to not be "Blinded By the Light" and to live in a time when information is freely and often warmly exchanged.

 

[Bowldy45]

I've been thinking about why people are so set on using the lamp and won't consider any other way as viable, and I think it's the same reason that folks have backyard gardens and plant everything in rows. It's a scaled down version of what the big commercial farms do, so that must be the way to do it and no other way is possible. Forget that in our small-scale operation, it's inefficient, makes unnecessary work for us and in the case of chickens, it goes against their natural instincts. If this is how the big commercials farms do it, it must be the way, yeah? I saw early on that growing in rows was not the best approach (for me. If you grow in rows and you're happy, keep doing it.) I have no big equipment that tills, plants and harvests only in a straight line, so why would I try to imitate the big farms who do have that equipment and it's the most efficient way for them to operate? Square-foot gardening and container gardening makes sense to me, and when it comes to chicks, the MHP makes so much more sense for me than a small-scale version of what the big commercial poultry farms do. The big commercial farms couldn't possibly do large-scale MHPs as efficiently as they can do heat lamps. The big farms want large scale production in the most cost-effective operation. I want happy and healthy chickens. Different priorities; different methods.

I completely agree. Just because someone says, this is the norm... does not mean everyone has to do it that way! Very seldom do I follow the norm anyways LoL . I will say I do garden in the rows, but only because I have the tiller to do so, and I can and freeze everything I grow so that I don't have to depend or rely on the grocery store. I also know of several folks that do containers because it works for them.
When I started this journey of deciding I wanted chickens, I did TONS of reading and asking questions on this site. I took ideas from several folks and hubby and I built a coop that works for us. Just as I took several ideas and incorporated them into this brooder I now have. I did start out with feather dusters hanging in the brooder for the chicks to snuggle under ( only due to the MHP being out in the coop and set up ) , but within hours I took those out and brought in the MHP.
With out doubt, it is a learning experience, and it ultimately boils down to what works best for each person.... as long as they use the MHP! LoL