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

[jayelle96]

I saw on another thread that you have your heating pad set on 6. This setup might be fine for a day or so, but you will be amazed at how fast they'll grow - sometimes it seems like you can stand next to the brooder and hear them growing!! So I think what I'd do first is turn the heating pad down. It's pretty close to their backs, and your set up is indoors and closed within a solid cardboard box, so they don't need it that high. Chicks (and adult chickens) don't do well with too much heat, despite the dire warnings to keep them super warm at all times. They get lethargic, just like we do if we are sitting on the patio in 100 degree heat with no way to cool down. So turn your MHP down to about 4 and see how they do....I'll bet they'll come out a little more and explore a little more if they aren't overheated. If they start bunching up and acting cold, you can gently pop them back under and see if they relax.

I know you said this was temporary...what will your next brooder be like? I think the next thing I do is try to make a frame that's adjustable. It doesn't have to be fancy - just a piece of hardware cloth with the sharp points taped over and some dowels stuck into it across the top to help it keep its shape would be just fine.

After reading through quite a lot of this thread, we went with the MHP for our chicks. We started with the heat on 6 when the chicks were indoors and the chicks ranged from 4 or 5 days to about 10 days (according to the woman at the store). The room was about 65-75 degrees during the day and they spent the whole day out running around. They seemed happy, so we decided not to worry about it. As they got bigger, the night-time temps in the MHP grew quite warm - so it wasn't long before we dropped to setting to 4 and then 3. (We have a wireless thermometer in with them)

We moved them outside last weekend once the temperatures were expected to be in the 60s 70s consistently. Yesterday was very windy, which worried me some, but they just camped out in the enclosed upper part of the coop, occasionally ducking in and out of the MHP, and seemed perfectly happy. (Is it weird that we have a webcam on them so we can watch them all day?

)

 

[0wen]

It's 11 pm, and all of the little ones have gone under Mama Heating Pad for the night. I spent much of the evening just observing their behaviors and wondering what other ways of doing this system would be as effective and perhaps simpler to set up. I also pondered azygous' question about the temperature inside the Chick Cave, because it got me curious, and I put a wireless thermometer transmitter inside the cave, about dead center with the reciever on my nightstand. Right now the room temp is 69 degrees and in the center of the cave, away from any direct contact with the heating pad, the temperature is a respectable 82.9. The babies are closer to the back of the cave,snuggled together and sleeping soundlly. I would imagine that closer to the pad and admid the pile of butts and beaks, the temp is running around 90-95, which is so perfect it explains why they are so contented. They've already figured out that when I turn off the big overhead light in the living room, "sunset" has started. They fill up their crops one last time and begin to mosy into the Chick cave, gettting themselves settled for the night. By the time the last light is turned off in the kitchen, there isn't sound coming from the brooder.



Thanks for showing this! Chicks are being mailed on Monday and I set this up for trouble-shooting and such. My temps in the cave were reading 82-85 empty - so use to having the baking red light that it seemed low. + chicks I'd imagine it's going to get to the 90+...

 

[COChix]

Big day for the Three Amigos....they are 3 and 4 days old already and they got kicked out of the house and outside into their brooder set up. The last two nights they had put themselves away in the house and everyone is eating and growing.

First I had to block the area from the flock, you can see I had helpers and observers.

Don't mind the make shift roof. It's not pretty but should keep them dry

Little One - the friendly EE kept going into the kennel when I was setting up their cave, guess she wanted to give it her approval.

At dusk they stood in the middle of the brooder huddled together chirping. I put them under the cave and they stayed. Last check of brooder temp is was 88. Will check again before bed, but it does feel good to get them outside. They also have started on fermented feed today and had a plug of sod in their brooder.

 

[Blooie]

Yeah, as I've said, I've never worried about what the temps are in the cave. I just put the wireless thermometer in there for a few hours one night in answer to @azygous question, took it right back out after I posted that picture, and it never went back in again, not even with day old chicks living out in the run with temps in the teens and twenties. To me the sheer pleasure of this entire system is that it relieves so much stress about raising chicks.

But conversely, it's that very lack of fussing and fiddling that makes this system so hard for many to wrap their heads around - if they aren't having to worry about warmth and safety, then they have to find somewhere else to get the stress they have been led to believe they have to have. It's very simplicity makes it almost intimidating!! So for me a wire frame that I can lift up or smoosh down, a heating pad, a stack of old towels, and some straw is as complicated as it gets. And I have a beautiful, healthy flock to remind me every day how well it works. I have eggs in the Brinsea incubator right now, and as soon as they are hatched, dry and fluffed they are going out to the run in the same pen and with the same cave setup that worked so well for Scout and for 3 groups of chicks last year.

Edited to add: Boy, I have a lot of dues to get credited, don't I? So many pictures of chicks and setups - thanks~!!

 

[Jensownzoo]

Well the 3-4 week olds did just fine through last night's cold temps and this morning's thunderstorm. When I went to check on them they were popping in and out of their MHP (from the front!) like they were supposed to. They had experienced a natural dawn for the first time (no windows in the basement brooder room) and so their trough was quite empty when I arrived--and they let me know it! I refilled it just before I left this evening, so hopefully it will tide them over a little better...either that or I need a bigger trough!

Update would have been sooner, but someone showed up at the door with an hours-old abandoned kitten, so I had to arrange for one of my healthy adult cats to donate serum so the poor thing could get the antibodies it needed since it didn't get mom's colostrum. Little gray girl. Hopefully I can find someone with a nursing mom soon...I am not built for getting up every two hours around the clock.

 

[Blooie]

Put it under a heating pad! Seriously, should work great to keep it's core temp up while you are looking for a surrogate mom. Congrats on the chicks' graduation. See, it's not all that bad out there for them, right? Mine did great in a snowstorm and power outage at a week old! Those little critters are tougher than we think they are. You know, makes you wonder if somewhere out there a flock of chickens has a hit out on us for exposing the truth about them and pulling their gravy train!

 

[ShrekDawg]

Yeah, as I've said, I've never worried about what the temps are in the cave.  I just put the wireless thermometer in there for a few hours one night in answer to @azygous
 question, took it right back out after I posted that picture, and it never went back in again, not even with day old chicks living out in the run with temps in the teens and twenties.  To me the sheer pleasure of this entire system is that it relieves so much stress about raising chicks.  

But conversely, it's that very lack of fussing and fiddling that makes this system so hard for many to wrap their heads around - if they aren't having to worry about warmth and safety, then they have to find somewhere else to get the stress they have been led to believe they have to have.  It's very simplicity makes it almost intimidating!!  So for me a wire frame that I can lift up or smoosh down, a heating pad, a stack of old towels, and some straw is as complicated as it gets.  And I have a beautiful, healthy flock to remind me every day how well it works.  I have eggs in the Brinsea incubator right now, and as soon as they are hatched, dry and fluffed they are going out to the run in the same pen and with the same cave setup that worked so well for Scout and for 3 groups of chicks last year.  

Edited to add:  Boy, I have a lot of dues to get credited,  don't I?  So many pictures of chicks and setups - thanks~!!

I forget, or maybe you never said it?, but how many chickens do you have right now? Just seems like I hear you talk about chicks a lot/several other batches (maybe things get repeated too though) and now the new hatch and surely all those chicks must add up!!! LOL just curious.

 

[Jensownzoo]

Put it under a heating pad!  Seriously, should work great to keep it's core temp up while you are looking for a surrogate mom.  Congrats on the chicks' graduation.  See, it's not all that bad out there for them, right?  Mine did great in a snowstorm and power outage at a week old!  Those little critters are tougher than we think they are.  You know, makes you wonder if somewhere out there a flock of chickens has a hit out on us for exposing the truth about them and pulling their gravy train!    

These little guys are why I already owned three of those Sunbeam pads when I stumbled upon this thread! This time of year I also keep those chemical handwarmers, unflavored pedialyte, and oral syringes in my van. I have a special set of exercise bras in case one of them needs extra-close monitoring too. Chicks are adorable little fluffy-butts, but kittens have me wrapped around their tiny paws...

 

[yellowherb]

MHP works again!
I can't say thanks enough for this wonderful idea. It's saved me, an quiet possibly the noisiest chick I've ever had.

My sultan chicks tend to be noisier than most other chicks I've raised, but this one particular chick was a real screamer. I rushed inside brooding to put it in my garden shed brooder thinking being with other chicks might make it shut up (after 3 nights of unrestful sleep from the noise it was making). Well it sat in the shed screaming too. So I brought it back inside, thinking maybe being with younger chicks might help. Urghh still screamed. I finally grabbed the MHP.

Ahh peace and quiet!! I turn a light on in one end each morning to draw the chicks out for feed and water, but at night the light goes out and I have a peaceful nights rest.

 

[GranolaGirl72]

First night down and all 5 came out to greet me when I turned on the laundry room light. Pulled the thermometer yesterday and never put it back after I restructured the cave. Took my neighbors old dish drainer, flattened the plate rack with my hand and then sawed off about 6 inches of the narrow end. Draped the pad and a towl over it so the new space is 3x as large. The ambient temperature of my laundry room is 63° right now. I need to put them in a larger box as their feed and water are right outside the new larger cave, with no room to really run around. However, one of the EE found the space on top of the cave. I have a pallet right outside the laundry room door and the garage is running at just about 43° this morning. We got and inch and a half of snow yesterday...

so not so warm in our neck of the woods. Thoughts on how long to wait until I give them the proverbial shove out the door?