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

[Blooie]

@mojavemike1 Very nice! You won't believe how fast they'll grow, so now that you've shown them where the heat is your job is done - well, except for cleaning, watering, feeding, and smiling! With warmer summer days they won't need the heat long anyway.

@bruceha2000 One of the very reasons I love MHP - it so closely duplicates a broody. Wouldn't it look silly if she stood as high as she could with her wings outspread trying to duplicate a Brisnea or Eco-glow? Chicks LIKE that dark place to rest and hide. MHP provides it. They also do so much better with natural day/night cycles.

@Jacqdiva Putter away! So many innovations and modifications have been done with this system. It's as personal as the chick owner wants to make it. It can be be simple, like I prefer, or with extra bells and whistles. As long as the basics are there - warmth and darkness with a nice "safety zone" for security - they thrive.

So I'm back! Thanks for holding down the fort for the thread, my friends. Still playing a lot of catch-up here. Some threads grew by 100+ posts in a week!

 

[henless]

Welcome back Blooie! Hope you had a wonderful time.

 

[countrygirl86]

A huge thanks to all who posted on this thread. I got my babies yesterday and set up the cave for them. I was a little concerned that it doesn't seem hot enough but all 12 chicks seem happy. I have not measured the temp inside, just going off of their behavior. This is much different than my experience with my older girls where I used a heat lamp and monitored temp at all times. Looking forward to when I can put them out in the coop and introduce them to the big girls.

 

[Blooie]

I'm happy that you are trying this method for raising chicks! It sure cuts down on the monitoring, doesn't it? When I first set mine up and started posting here, azygous asked what the temps were in the cave. I hadn't worried about it because the babies were doing so well, but out of curiosity I put a wireless thermometer in there. I think by the then the chicks had already been using it for a few days, and I had used this system with a single chick even when the temps outside were well below zero. Under the cave it read 82.9 degrees and the room itself was 69. (They were indoors at the time because we got the chicks early, the outside pen wasn't set up yet, and Ken ended up in the hospital the night we got the chicks. Otherwise they start out in the run outdoors.)

Is there a way you can set up a temporary pen and just go ahead and put them out now? I set up a dog's x-pen in the run for mine, and they did great despite temps in the teens and twenties out there. The big advantage is that they can see the older birds and the older ones get used to them. Makes integration a lot easier later on. Doesn't take much to make them a small pen - just a frame with chicken wire attached would work as long as the coop is secure from predators.

 

[mojavemike1]

I had my setting at #6 and I think it was too hot for them, because they all slept outside. Now I have it set at #4 and they
seem to like it better.



In the box above them I have 7 chicks from My Pet Chicken which I will integrate with my other chicks in a couple of days. I picked them up from the PO at 7.00am this morning. They are all the same age.
Hopefully I have...
Salmon Faverolle
GL Wyandotte
SL Wyandotte
Welsummer
Speckled Sussex
Silver Cuckoo Maran
Buff Laced Polish



They were mailed Monday and arrived today...can't beat that.
They all looked vigorous but obviously tired after their stressful journey

 

[countrygirl86]

I will be putting them out in the coop within a week or two. I 'could' put them out now but I wanted to be able to monitor them (stare at them for hours lol). The only predator I am worried about is rats. We live right next to a corn field and I have found droppings in the storage area of the coop. I will need to reinforce the outside hutch/brooder before I put them out. I am sure I could check the temp in the cave but I am not as worried this time around. They are all spread out doing their own chick thing. Drinking, eating, chasing each other, and they go in to warm up when they feel like it. Nothing but happy chick sounds

mojavemike1, Mine shipped on Monday too! We also ordered a Salmon Faverolle, a SL Wyandotte, and a Silver Cuckoo Maran. Maybe ours are siblings

 

[Blooie]

I had my setting at #6 and I think it was too hot for them, because they all slept outside. Now I have it set at #4 and they
seem to like it better.



In the box above them I have 7 chicks from My Pet Chicken which I will integrate with my other chicks in a couple of days. I picked them up from the PO at 7.00am this morning. They are all the same age.
Hopefully I have...
Salmon Faverolle
GL Wyandotte
SL Wyandotte
Welsummer
Speckled Sussex
Silver Cuckoo Maran
Buff Laced Polish



They were mailed Monday and arrived today...can't beat that.
They all looked vigorous but obviously tired after their stressful journey

It looks like they have a heat lamp on them as well, or am I seeing thngs?

 

[mojavemike1]

It looks like they have a heat lamp on them as well, or am I seeing thngs?

The brooder box (with heatlamp) for the new arrivals is sitting on top of the bathtub with my Polish and their Momma Cave. In a couple of days I will transfer them if all seems well. I didn't want to mix the chicks from My Pet Chicken until I knew everything was ok with them, sort of quarantine.

 

[azygous]

Glad you're back Blooie! Hope it was a great trip!

I have an announcement! MPC apologized for screwing up my order so terrifically and agreed to replace the roosters with new pullets, including shipping! Luckily, an Aug 3 hatch has the chicks I wanted so three new ones will be on their way Aug 4!

Of course, I don't have to send the two boys back. I get to keep them, and they're my "freebies". Both are ten weeks old and crowing up to four notes already, bless their little hearts.

So I get to employ my MHP system again in just two weeks! It'll be a challenge since the grow-out pen will be full of 12-week olds, and the new chicks will have to integrate, when the time comes, into a coop that is already occupied by chicks three months older than they are.

Gotta get my creative neurons fired up for what's coming!

 

[bruceha2000]

Found elsewhere that you got 6 chicks (sex-able by sight no less) 2 died, 2 were cockerels. So my math says MPC owes you FOUR female chicks, no? Plus a couple of "packing peanuts" which will inevitably be male leaving you with 6 girls and 4 boys