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

[poodlechicks]

I haven't had a chance to read all the posts since yesterday, but learning a lot from the pics.
Blooie, praying for your family to make it back home safely.

 

[dyorto]

Well everyone survived night one, I didn't sleep very well, kept hearing chicks chirping and it was waking me up LOL!  Went to check on them and they were, OF COURSE, quiet and sleeping...yep just like when I brought my babies home LOL

Anwho, they're doing well.  We were only able to get two silver laced and they're for my mom and SO CUTE!  So we're both protective of them <3  And of course!  One of the silver laced had some poop above and below her vent, assumed that was pasty butt so soaker her lil tush in some warm water and cleaned it off, dabbed it with coconut oil.  And then the other one's belly button has a big scab on it, I went to the bathroom to get the Neosporin (non pain relief one) and my daughter was holding her and thought it was poop so started cleaning it off, the belly button   I should've told her to leave it be UGH.  I hope it will be okay???

I had one of my checks with a scab on its belly button as well. It was black in about the size of a pea. I too thought it was poop at first and was going to try to clean it but realize that's not what it was and simply left it alone. I have had my chicks for one week and while the scab is still there the chick seems to be doing perfectly fine

 

[bruceha2000]

@Blooie Here is my payment. I took what you said and changed my mind. I used some cloth, some chicken wire, some duct tape and a sunbeam heating pad and made my brooder. It is not high like before, and maybe as the girls get older I will move it up to my original idea, which was 4 inches, not 7 like I originally tought. I tried to take a picture of the babies inside, but they are tucked way back getting warm. It was quite chilly here for the shipping. They are loving it. They are completely quiet and all I hear is a little tiny happy chirps. ere is the pic, wish it had chickies in it!!!!


BTW, none of them can be hurt, The pink, crazy tape is covering every sharp corner. SO HAPPY!!!!

Um, I rubbed my eyes, cleaned my glasses, etc and I STILL see a couple of tails and backs in the lower right. Am I blind??

@bruceha2000 Ha! Yes definitely have to change my signature I'm not sure which birds i will end up with and which ones my mom will have. What we ORDERED was 5 BO's (all females, the rest are under MHP), 5 Speckled Sussex (females), 2 Silver Laced Wyandottes (females), and a straight run of Wellsummers...but you think they are EE's? Do those breeds look a like? I'd be okay with EE's, since Blooie peaked my interest last week with her pretty birds But, my mom might not be as pleased

That would be my mistake

Chipmunk = EE, except when it doesn't. I've not had any of those breeds but my Partridge Chanteclers were chipmunk chicks. When chicken math hits, I would get some EEs. I like mine

and they conveniently all lay a different shade. Eos lays blue, Athena blue-green, Persephone (2012 chick) lays an XL darker blue green and Penelope lays a definite green which kind of goes olive as it ages (I don't refrigerate). Guess I have to not get any more if I want to be able to tell who laid each egg.

Quote:
Personally *I* would NOT. I thought I had included the caveat that the 2 sq ft MINIMUM is only if the chickens are in there at night while they sleep and are never confined to the coop otherwise. Guess that got removed when I reworked the post (I do that a lot before I hit Submit). I would definitely go with the 4 sq ft minimum if they ever have to be confined to the coop. Even that is not great. My 16 chickens have a 10x12 coop so I could put 30 in there but if you look at 16 chickens standing around not all bunched together, they fill that coop up pretty darned well. The less space they have, the more picking and pecking you will have because those lower in the order have nowhere to hide.

Plus, you need a MINIMUM of 1' of roost per bird. They need to be 18" apart if parallel so the birds can't pick on each other. And they need to be a minimum of 1' from the parallel wall. Yes you can stick 2 parallel 8' roosts in there and they will have 2 feet between the center of the roost. Where are YOU going to walk? And where are you going to put the ramp? Chickens can fly up to and down from a roost but they have to have a "runway" space to land. Figure AT LEAST 1.5' horizontal for every foot up. You sure aren't going to have that in a 4x8 coop with roosts parallel to the long walls.

Get yourself some masking tape and tape off 2' x 2' squares after making a 4x8 rectangle. A grown large fowl takes up about 1 sq ft just standing still (though they aren't square

). So grab 8 binders and stick one in the middle of each 2x2 square. That is the max space each bird would have in a 4x8 coop with 8 birds. Now make those squares 1.4' on each side. Get 8 more binders and fill the 2' squares. That is what it would look like with 16.

Then think about how you and your family would fare if you had to be confined in an area that allowed each of you no more than 3 sq ft.

@bruceha2000 Here they are from yesterday when we picked them up

I bet they are a lot happier with more room in the brooder

Quote:
I would absolutely NOT go grabbing chicks in the cave and pulling them out. If you feel a great need to check on them visually, lift up the cave. They are prey animals, they don't need to be traumatized every time some human wants to look at them.

Quote:
Since you, like most of us, have limited space, I would suggest not filling up too fast unless you plan to make soup out of older girls that aren't prime laying age any more. Chickens slow down on the laying thing after they are a couple of years old.

My 2012s laid really well their first year. Most did not lay their second winter, none laid this winter. Plus, the past 2 years, they restarted in mid to late February. At the moment only 4 of the 9 nearly 4 Y/O girls are laying again and they are quite sporadic so far.

Thus, if you don't want to be feeding a coop full of mostly non layers (potentially for years), you might want to save room to get some new checks every 2 or 3 years.

 

[aart]

Update: Kids are staying one more night. So relieved! This storm is supposed to taper off by tonight, but tomorrow temps could see 50 with rain. Nothing like standing water on ice to make things really nasty.

Good News Blooie!!! I was wondering of that might be an option...Whew!

 

[MesMama]

Sooooo I have two chicks that do NOT look like a Speckled Sussex or a Wellie. I posted on the Sussex thread to see what others thought and then I headed over to the Welsummer thread and found pics of a chick that looks EXACTLY like my two....they said it was an EE, but then someone mentioned Amerancauna, anyway now I'm confused LOL! EE, Amerancauna are the same thing I thought? AND why do I have two of them? Ha! Maybe I'll end up with a couple EE's after all @bruceha2000 LOL

Here's one-

 

[ShrekDawg]

Um, I rubbed my eyes, cleaned my glasses, etc and I STILL see a couple of tails and backs in the lower right. Am I blind??


That would be my mistake   Chipmunk = EE, except when it doesn't. I've not had any of those breeds but my Partridge Chanteclers were chipmunk chicks. When chicken math hits, I would get some EEs. I like mine   and they conveniently all lay a different shade. Eos lays blue, Athena blue-green, Persephone (2012 chick) lays an XL darker blue green and Penelope lays a definite green which kind of goes olive as it ages (I don't refrigerate). Guess I have to not get any more if I want to be able to tell who laid each egg.


Personally *I* would NOT. I thought I had included the caveat that the 2 sq ft MINIMUM is [COLOR=FF0000]only[/COLOR] if the chickens are in there at night while they sleep and are never confined to the coop otherwise. Guess that got removed when I reworked the post (I do that a lot before I hit Submit). I would definitely go with the 4 sq ft minimum if they ever have to be confined to the coop. Even that is not great. My 16 chickens have a 10x12 coop so I could put 30 in there but if you look at 16 chickens standing around not all bunched together, they fill that coop up pretty darned well. The less space they have, the more picking and pecking you will have because those lower in the order have nowhere to hide. 

Plus, you need a MINIMUM of 1' of roost per bird. They need to be 18" apart if parallel so the birds can't pick on each other. And they need to be a minimum of 1' from the parallel wall. Yes you can stick 2 parallel 8' roosts in there and they will have 2 feet between the center of the roost. Where are YOU going to walk? And where are you going to put the ramp? Chickens can fly up to and down from a roost but they have to have a "runway" space to land. Figure AT LEAST 1.5' horizontal for every foot up. You sure aren't going to have that in a 4x8 coop with roosts parallel to the long walls.

Get yourself some masking tape and tape off 2' x 2' squares after making a 4x8 rectangle. A grown large fowl takes up about 1 sq ft just standing still (though they aren't square  ). So grab 8 binders and stick one in the middle of each 2x2 square. That is the max space each bird would have in a 4x8 coop with 8 birds. Now make those squares 1.4' on each side. Get 8 more binders and fill the 2' squares. That is what it would look like with 16.   

Then think about how you and your family would fare if you had to be confined in an area that allowed each of you no more than 3 sq ft. 


I bet they are a lot happier with more room in the brooder 


I would absolutely NOT go grabbing chicks in the cave and pulling them out. If you feel a great need to check on them visually, lift up the cave. They are prey animals, they don't need to be traumatized every time some human wants to look at them.


Since you, like most of us, have limited space, I would suggest not filling up too fast unless you plan to make soup out of older girls that aren't prime laying age any more. Chickens slow down on the laying thing after they are a couple of years old. 

My 2012s laid really well their first year. Most did not lay their second winter, none laid this winter. Plus, the past 2 years, they restarted in mid to late February. At the moment only 4 of the 9 nearly 4 Y/O girls are laying again and they are quite sporadic so far. 

Thus, if you don't want to be feeding a coop full of mostly non layers (potentially for years), you might want to save room to get some new checks every 2 or 3 years.

Wow that's a big drop!!! That makes a lot of sense though!

And I'm not sure if I worded it right but my dad has limited me to 8 at least for now so if I did get more it wouldn't be until next year or the year after probably. I was wishfully thinking it could be later this year but you are right that I should definitely save room for more chicks in a couple years. Also I'm sure you gathered this since you said mostly non layers but I also meant maybe 12 total rather than 12 new ones. Though I'm sure eventually I'll get to 20 birds I might also just make the coop bigger now so I don't have to expand or build a second coop later. But I also got them as pets and eggs instead of only eggs so I don't think I'd have the heart to make soup out of them. :/

Maybe I need a retiree flock lol

 

[ShrekDawg]

Sooooo I have two chicks that do NOT look like a Speckled Sussex or a Wellie. I posted on the Sussex thread to see what others thought and then I headed over to the Welsummer thread and found pics of a chick that looks EXACTLY like my two....they said it was an EE, but then someone mentioned Amerancauna, anyway now I'm confused LOL! EE, Amerancauna are the same thing I thought? AND why do I have two of them? Ha! Maybe I'll end up with a couple EE's after all @bruceha2000 LOL

Here's one-

EEs are mutts while Ameraucana and Araucana are rare, expensive purebreds. Hatcheries/feed stores like to deceive people by claiming they have either when really they are EEs. Araucana also have no tails and Ameraucana only come in certain colors so unless they say "blue Ameraucana"/label by the color they're EEs. And both only lay blue eggs and come in certain colors while EEs, being mutts, come in almost all color and feather patterns and can lay about any color egg from pink or even sometimes brown to green or blue. The hatchery I got mine from fortunately is, imo, an excellent hatchery and also sells EEs separately from Ameraucanas. I wanted EEs so I ordered 2 along with other breeds. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what breed your chicks are although your chick there looks an awful lot like my EEs did as babies.

 

[MesMama]

@KDOGG331 Cool! Thanks for the info! So do you think this is a pullet?

Also, I'm just thinking the people at the hatchery would have surely known by looking at these two chicks that they weren't Sussex or Wellies, yes? Frustrating. But I could have gotten some nasty kind of bird instead of an EE *shrug* So it could be worse

 

[mobius]

Chick looks like my gold lace wyandottes did, chipmunk with that face pattern...you will likely know more in a couple weeks when you start to see wing feathers...

 

[bruceha2000]

Sooooo I have two chicks that do NOT look like a Speckled Sussex or a Wellie. I posted on the Sussex thread to see what others thought and then I headed over to the Welsummer thread and found pics of a chick that looks EXACTLY like my two....they said it was an EE, but then someone mentioned Amerancauna, anyway now I'm confused LOL! EE, Amerancauna are the same thing I thought? AND why do I have two of them? Ha! Maybe I'll end up with a couple EE's after all @bruceha2000 LOL

Here's one-

Nope, EEs have green or slate legs. And there is no way you "accidentally" got a Silver Ameraucana (the only one that is chipmunk as a chick and quite rare) from a big commercial hatchery. IF the hatchery has REAL Ameraucana, they will say SPECIFICALLY what color the chicks are and they aren't going to give you one as an "extra". The few (I'm not sure if there is even more than one) that have REAL Ameraucana sell them for a lot more than common chickens. Meyer sells Blues and they are $20 for a female chick and won't sell you more than 8. Anyone selling "Ameraucana" that isn't giving a color is lying. They are selling EEs. No one knows WHY they are so stubborn about calling them something they are not. After all, sex links are not a breed either and they don't mind selling those without selling them with the name of a recognized breed.

Said otherwise, I have no idea what that chick is but it is cute

Best said short - The APA recognized Ameraucana breed was developed from birds that look like today's EEs. Selecting for color, blue (and ONLY blue) eggs plus other features. Even a cross of a true Ameraucana with another true Ameraucana may produce a chick that doesn't meet the SOP and would then be called an EE. But EEs can come from lots of different crosses if one of the parents has a blue egg gene and passes it on. They are "mutts" but great birds. One of the fun parts is you have no idea what a day old EE chick will look like when it grows up.