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

[flewdcoop]

After lurking about this thread I would like to add my thanks ( both to Blooie for posting it here and the person who originated the idea ). It has forced me to reconsider my plans for starting my mini flock.
My initial plan was to bypass brooding chicks and just buying pullets, now I'm in the process of making a mama heating pad and a brooder area in the coop. Now I don't have to worry about a heat lamp starting a fire...YEAH.

 

[odysseychicken]

@odysseychicken Okay, they are officially adorable!! Thanks for paying your membership fee!

I'll bet you'll find that if you pull that front down a bit to form an awning they'll really be quiet all night long - no light coming inside and helps hold a little more heat in for those critical first couple of days. You did so well with your setup! They are going to just love it, and if you're like many of us within a couple of weeks you'll be wondering where you can get "just a few more" because these seem to grow so doggone fast!

@katbriar I should be the one thanking you - and all of the others who make this work. I don't know how thoughtful my posts are - my fingers seem to type whatever is in my head - but I do agree that they are usually long!

Just part of my charm, as Ken would say.

I'm also happy to report that Kendra's new braces look like they are going to work out just fine. The only fly in the ointment is that because they are a slightly different type, with AFO (ankle foot orthotics) attached to them instead of them being riveted directly to the shoes, we'll be limited in how many hours a day she can wear them at first. We have to watch for skin breakdown. She does that so easily. So our walking will be curtailed until we're up to full time in them. And Little Miss Sophia, Kendra's birth buddy, is doing very well following her open heart surgery. This one is supposed to be the worst of the 3 major parts to the repair. Somebody forgot to tell Sophia....she's been outside laying in the grass at the hospital, then discharged to the hotel the family was staying in, and as of Friday the little monkey is going home. I know adults who have had less invasive things done that don't recover that well. Yayyy Kendra and Sophia.

I know I do go on, but is it my fault that my life is so rich and full and wonderful?

They are pretty cute. We refer to them as our five piece nuggets. I do have the towel pulled down over the front. I just had it up so I could take a picture.

I would like to thank you for the idea. Three days ago I was ready to use a heat lamp and constantly wonder if my house would still be there when I got home from work. But now, no worries and the chicks seem pretty happy. And, it couldn't have been any easier.

Thanks

 

[azygous]

Blooie, Sophia and Kendra are amazing and you're entitled to feel awesomely proud of them, and besides, what total cuties!

Am I the only person in the world who simply melts at the sight of tiny, little, delicate baby chick feet? Gosh, I adore them! Odyssey, I just love those baby pics!

 

[Blooie]

After lurking about this thread I would like to add my thanks ( both to Blooie for posting it here and the person who originated the idea ). It has forced me to reconsider my plans for starting my mini flock.
My initial plan was to bypass brooding chicks and just buying pullets, now I'm in the process of making a mama heating pad and a brooder area in the coop. Now I don't have to worry about a heat lamp starting a fire...YEAH.

Doggone it! I don't know how I managed to miss this post and I do apologize! I sure hope this works as well for you as it has for almost everyone else who's tried it. I know I'll never go back to heat lamps and 24/7 light on the chicks. You do know that we require photos here as your membership dues into the Broody Brigade, right?

 

[Blooie]

Just letting you all know that little Sophia got to go home yesterday. She totally rocked this most recent surgery! She has another heart cath scheduled for just before Christmas, and she'll have those just as regularly as she did before. Thanks for your prayers and good thoughts!

 

[bruceha2000]

After lurking about this thread I would like to add my thanks ( both to Blooie for posting it here and the person who originated the idea ). It has forced me to reconsider my plans for starting my mini flock.
My initial plan was to bypass brooding chicks and just buying pullets, now I'm in the process of making a mama heating pad and a brooder area in the coop. Now I don't have to worry about a heat lamp starting a fire...YEAH.

I can think of only few reasons to buy started pullets:

1. Chick sexing at the hatcheries is ~90% accurate. You can not have a rooster, will not eat your chickens and are concerned you might not be able to find a "Free to good home, must not be eaten" place to send any you get.
2. #1 plus: You want a breed and/or quality you can't get from the hatcheries.
3. You want eggs SOON rather than in 5-6 months

Those little fluff balls are SO cute. And they change week by week. You can watch their personalities develop as they get used to you being the provider of food and TREATS from the get go. And yes, the MHPB is "revolutionary" yet not. I really don't know how the "roast your chicks with a heat lamp 24x7 for 4 weeks" brooding method got to be THE BEST AND ONLY way to raise chicks. Maybe people couldn't find heating pads with the "don't shut off feature". Or maybe since a bazillion MHPs in a large commercial operation would be ridiculous, it was "scaled down" to the home chicken crowd. It is good for the people who sell heat lamp reflectors and the bulbs

but unlike a nice heating pad, they are useless when you aren't brooding chicks.

If the circumstances were such that I was getting my first chickens now, rather than 3 years ago, I would have chosen MHP over "the usual" method. If you have read the entire thread, you know the benefits of a properly set up MHP and the drawbacks (there aren't any near as I can tell). And the benefits (the chicks live and grow) and drawbacks (hard on the birds (though they can't complain), totally unnatural, hard to regulate unless you have a LARGE space) of the heat lamp system.

If your coop is ready to go, set up the MHP in there. Since these are your only chickens, no need to even make a "brooding pen", just set up the MHP. They will happily explore their environment rather than be chucked into it one day.

I am SUPPOSED to be getting 4 White Chantecler Pullets for reason #2. Still waiting. Presuming I am ever notified they are ready to be picked up, I will find out how easy/hard/different it is to have chickens that did not grow up here. And how well/not-so-well integration with the nine 3 Y/O hens and seven 17 week old pullets (*) will go. Even though the younger 7 were raised by a broody in the coop with the other hens, the whole pecking order thing happens since they are all now almost adult size and are bigger than the Cubalayas. But even the Cubalayas are trying to hang on to their "superior position". It won't happen. But it has to be easier to change a bit at a time than be thrown into a somewhat static pecking order.


* All pullets I THINK! One of the White Rocks is sporting more comb and wattles than the other, also more red. But the two birds are the same size so I am HOPING one is just maturing faster than the other and will be the first of the group to lay.

 

[lazy gardener]

OK. Here they are. When we put them in their box they just hung out by the feeder. One by one I placed them in the "cave" so they would know where it was. As soon as I put them in their eyes got heavy and they fell asleep. They forgot all about the food.

Odyssey, you get the story book post of the week for your pics, and the description of their response to MHP!!!

I can think of only few reasons to buy started pullets:

1. Chick sexing at the hatcheries is ~90% accurate. You can not have a rooster, will not eat your chickens and are concerned you might not be able to find a "Free to good home, must not be eaten" place to send any you get.
2. #1 plus: You want a breed and/or quality you can't get from the hatcheries.
3. You want eggs SOON rather than in 5-6 months

Those little fluff balls are SO cute. And they change week by week. You can watch their personalities develop as they get used to you being the provider of food and TREATS from the get go. And yes, the MHPB is "revolutionary" yet not. I really don't know how the "roast your chicks with a heat lamp 24x7 for 4 weeks" brooding method got to be THE BEST AND ONLY way to raise chicks. Maybe people couldn't find heating pads with the "don't shut off feature". Or maybe since a bazillion MHPs in a large commercial operation would be ridiculous, it was "scaled down" to the home chicken crowd. It is good for the people who sell heat lamp reflectors and the bulbs

but unlike a nice heating pad, they are useless when you aren't brooding chicks.

If the circumstances were such that I was getting my first chickens now, rather than 3 years ago, I would have chosen MHP over "the usual" method. If you have read the entire thread, you know the benefits of a properly set up MHP and the drawbacks (there aren't any near as I can tell). And the benefits (the chicks live and grow) and drawbacks (hard on the birds (though they can't complain), totally unnatural, hard to regulate unless you have a LARGE space) of the heat lamp system.

If your coop is ready to go, set up the MHP in there. Since these are your only chickens, no need to even make a "brooding pen", just set up the MHP. They will happily explore their environment rather than be chucked into it one day.

I am SUPPOSED to be getting 4 White Chantecler Pullets for reason #2. Still waiting. Presuming I am ever notified they are ready to be picked up, I will find out how easy/hard/different it is to have chickens that did not grow up here. And how well/not-so-well integration with the nine 3 Y/O hens and seven 17 week old pullets (*) will go. Even though the younger 7 were raised by a broody in the coop with the other hens, the whole pecking order thing happens since they are all now almost adult size and are bigger than the Cubalayas. But even the Cubalayas are trying to hang on to their "superior position". It won't happen. But it has to be easier to change a bit at a time than be thrown into a somewhat static pecking order.


* All pullets I THINK! One of the White Rocks is sporting more comb and wattles than the other, also more red. But the two birds are the same size so I am HOPING one is just maturing faster than the other and will be the first of the group to lay.

Bruce, your reasons # 1, 2, 3, can in no way hold the candle to having little fluff balls, and watching the daily changes as they move through the clumsy chick to the gangly, ugly teenager, to the sweet shiny feathered pullet! The only thing better than starting chicks is holding a warm 10 day old egglet in your hand, and watching the chick doing the Joy Dance of Life inside!!!

 

[bruceha2000]

Odyssey, you get the story book post of the week for your pics, and the description of their response to MHP!!!

Bruce, your reasons # 1, 2, 3, can in no way hold the candle to having little fluff balls, and watching the daily changes as they move through the clumsy chick to the gangly, ugly teenager, to the sweet shiny feathered pullet! The only thing better than starting chicks is holding a warm 10 day old egglet in your hand, and watching the chick doing the Joy Dance of Life inside!!!

Well yeah, but as you know, reality with respect to the "no roosters, no eating the chickens" is what it is

I think the WR that is "more mature" than the other is starting to transition from "clown car horn" to "chicken" noises. Will have to check more closely, it is sometimes hard to know who is "talking" when 16 birds are all "talking" at once.

 

[lazy gardener]

One of my 8 week old pullets sounds like she's loosing her peep when I grab her! I do hope that precocious WR is a pullet!

 

[Blooie]

One of my 8 week old pullets sounds like she's loosing her peep when I grab her! I do hope that precocious WR is a pullet!

Ooh, fingers crossed!!