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

[Victoria-nola]

I recently bought my pad so was able to retrieve the link pretty easily. This is the most favored pad:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005NZ66KU/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Lets see Once you do about ten posts then you will have permission from BYC to post pictures.

I am in San Diego county My place is sixty miles east of San Diego in the desert. I have had chickens off and on for about 25 years.... right now its off... Long story.

I have yet to do MHP because I dont live at home right now. But I am good with building suggestions and construction techniques.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

I'm getting 4 EE and 5 red sexlink

Loved my EEs silly hens...

 

[lajgiver]

I'm 12 and I live in southwest GA and I like all animals.

 

[azygous]

Do y'all think it would be to hot to brood chicks outside in July??

Certainly not if you live in New Zealand or Australia.

 

[lalaland]

Chicks are only 11 days old, but I took away the MHP today. mid 80's during the day, low 60's at night. Made a huddle box and put a heat plate in it, and some hay.

Some distress at dusk, but I just kept putting them in it, they popcorned out, I put them in,.....repeat. After some started going back in on their own, I left them to it. Just went to check and all were in the box or right in front of it - one side is open and a towel is providing an overhang.

Hope they are too old to be piling up and smothering.....

 

[bruceha2000]

That is EXACTLY what it sounds like to me.

Well just to report further, as of yesterday the chicks broke out of the semi-protected yard and are now free-ranging at just under 4 weeks old. The rooster is able to gather them up periodically and they are pretty much staying in the shade and overhangs just like the adults do. They are following the adults around while also finding their own spaces.

They were able to fly up onto the fence, above where we'd laid on the 1" chicken wire, and over. So then we opened the portal so that the adults could free-range again too. Everyone seems very happy. We check on them every hour or so.

More spoiled butt chickens. I have 16 of them. Pretty demanding at morning BOSS and nightly scratch time.

 

[Victoria-nola]

More spoiled butt chickens. I have 16 of them. Pretty demanding at morning BOSS and nightly scratch time.

heh. We have not had problems with our older chickens getting themselves in at night, so have not been in the habit of offering something special at night (they just fill their crops with their standard feed), but in order to keep them entertained while they were shut in the yard with the chicks (prior to their breakout), I started feeding them scratch in the morning, before their BOSS/mealworm/shredded coconut standard treat. Now they are WAITING in the yard for me to bring them scratch before starting their day free-ranging. Really too funny how little it takes to form a new "tradition" of spoiledness

The littles don't respond to offers of grain. They are way too interested in the world around them and just come into the yard for feed as needed during the day. They'll eat the grain and scratch like crazy once in the yard, but don't come running, so far, when it's offered.

I want to mention an interesting phenomenon regarding the hatch. I started with 22 eggs, basically just incubated the eggs collected over however many days. Certain of the eggs are distinguishable and I know who lays them. We had 11 hatched chicks, 10 surviving chicks. Of those 10, three were hatched from one hen, and 3 from another, with 1 hatched from the other identifiable egg. That leaves 3 that I don't know which hen laid them. But, the ones I recognize are my best layers, and they had the best hatch rate! Another strange thing is that each of the sets of three hatched themselves in a row. So not only did the best layers have the highest hatch rate, each hen's eggs hatched at nearly the same time. I wrote everything down so I have this on record and was looking at the record again this morning-- turns out the three friendliest chicks are from the same hen.

I'm also afraid I have 8 cockerels and 2 pullets, but I hope very much I'm wrong.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Outstanding observations.... one thing that can help in future is to mark the eggs.... Some people when they put their eggs in lock down put them in little baskets that keeps the hatching chicks with their eggs. If there is space. then temporary Id bands go on after the hatch is over and every one can go in the same brooding space.

temporary bands can be as simple as small zip ties put on tight enough not to come off but loose enough for growth... snip them off with wire cutters and replace as they grow.

deb

 

[Victoria-nola]

Thankyou I did number the eggs and numbered the order in which they hatched with descriptions of each chick (and I had a physical problem in the incubator that meant I wound up taking out each chick separately so I could track their egg). That means the distinctive chicks I now recognize, but the ones that are similar (the blues) I can't figure out. So yes, I can see that baskets and bands would be very helpful (but would need to know more). Because I would really like to know for sure who the two pullets were born to, and I see now it might be good to be choosy about whose eggs I incubate in future.

Also I could add that the eggs were all mixed up in the incubator so it's not that the 2-sets of 3 eggs were next to each other and that's what produced the time-similarity of hatching. They were widely separated, even after removal from the turner.

p.s. I love the cockerels, they are being so darling and sweet! I know they won't stay quite that way, but I'm pretty attached.