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

[FlyWheel]

Quote:
Originally Posted by aart

HolyCrap!!!!....that'll make storms scary forever!!!!
Where are you located?

Creek county- Mannford, Oklahoma but we are going to stay with my mom in Tulsa tonight . That was not the first of my terrifying experiences with tornadic activity either. But carrying my babies in my arms, scared for them, by far made it the worst. My husband works overnights so that doesn't help- our worst sstorms are typically overnight.
Ouch. If there is one thing i learned in my few months in the central states it's that mobile homes attract twisters (mobile home parks breed them, I think)! Glad to see you and everyone else got through it OK.

My pad has been set at 1 for the last few days and everyone is sleeping on top. Clustered, but not huddled. I think sometime next week I'm going to try turning it off completely. The babies are pretty much feathered, just their neck are not done yet. They are in the garage, no drafts and it's been in the 60 every night for a couple weeks now, up in the 80s during the day.All they really seem to use it for now is a hideaway.

They will be 5 weeks old this Sunday. I cannot believe I haven't lost a single one.

 

[bruceha2000]

Quote:
Well NOW I am

Did @Blooie win and @duluthralphie and @azygous tie for second or the other way around????
@duluthralphie You need to smuggle some REAL Black Australorp fertile eggs into your first class carryon for the return trip. Get one of those special "we REALLY trust you" cards from ICE so you don't have to have your bag checked by immigration

@Blooie If you won more hatching eggs and don't want to mess with the incubator, I can send you Zorra. I had to put her in the buster this evening. At 9 AM, both she and Peep were in the right side nest box. Add big Zorra and little Peep together and you have the equivalent of 2 full sized large fowl in one box, tight fit. Sometime between then and 4 Zorra had moved to the middle box, pretty much comatose. At this point Peep will stay out of the nest if I remove here and steal the eggs but Zorra headed right back in to sit on a plastic egg. She's been making the "broody cluck" noise for the past couple of days. Mr. Hyde returning.


Well Diane, ANOTHER poorly written, uninteresting, totally uninformative article. Will you NEVER stop?? (Please, never)

I'm still ready for my autographed 1st edition copy of your book. Got started on that yet?

 

[bruceha2000]

My pad has been set at 1 for the last few days and everyone is sleeping on top. Clustered, but not huddled. I think sometime next week I'm going to try turning it off completely. The babies are pretty much feathered, just their neck are not done yet. They are in the garage, no drafts and it's been in the 60 every night for a couple weeks now, up in the 80s during the day.All they really seem to use it for now is a hideaway.

They will be 5 weeks old this Sunday. I cannot believe I haven't lost a single one.

Congratulations! Yep, you can turn the pad off, they don't need any heat but they might like to keep the "security cave".

 

[Blooie]

Well NOW I am

Did @Blooie win and @duluthralphie and @azygous tie for second or the other way around????
@duluthralphie You need to smuggle some REAL Black Australorp fertile eggs into your first class carryon for the return trip. Get one of those special "we REALLY trust you" cards from ICE so you don't have to have your bag checked by immigration

@Blooie If you won more hatching eggs and don't want to mess with the incubator, I can send you Zorra. I had to put her in the buster this evening. At 9 AM, both she and Peep were in the right side nest box. Add big Zorra and little Peep together and you have the equivalent of 2 full sized large fowl in one box, tight fit. Sometime between then and 4 Zorra had moved to the middle box, pretty much comatose. At this point Peep will stay out of the nest if I remove here and steal the eggs but Zorra headed right back in to sit on a plastic egg. She's been making the "broody cluck" noise for the past couple of days. Mr. Hyde returning.


Well Diane, ANOTHER poorly written, uninteresting, totally uninformative article. Will you NEVER stop?? (Please, never)

I'm still ready for my autographed 1st edition copy of your book. Got started on that yet?

Nope, Ralphie and azygous both won 1st and I won 3rd. My prize was a 6 month Golden Feather membership, which I needed because I wasn't sure how close to the end of term mine was. No eggs although Katie got some in the mail today. You might be a bit biased about the article I wrote, Bruce, since you've "known" the girls for over 2 years now and have always had a soft spot for Katiebug!

Haven't started the book you've been waiting for yet - still working on the Great American (Scottish) novel and need to finish that first!

Your girls need to give my girls lessons in being broody - supposedly Buff Orpingtons go broody a lot. Um, Kat didn't get the memo! Three years old, laying like a champ, but not one indictation of going broody ever!

You know what it's like for me going through TSA the way it is...can you imagine trying to do that and sneak a few Australorp eggs by them AND Customs besides?? I mean, even with a preferred TSA card Kendra still gets separated from me while they go through her bag of catheters, my walker and go over her wheelchair with their little explosive detective wipes!

 

[bruceha2000]

I can send you several teachers. Anais has been in the box twice already this month! I fully expect Clemence and Peep to make reservations and Zorra will too, probably at least 2 more times after her current "vacation". I'm hoping none of the new girls go that way, 4 broodies with nothing to hatch is far too many. The Meyer site says that their EEs are broody. I REALLY hope not, neither of my Ideal EEs ever even hinted at it.

The card I'm thinking of *I think* is good for coming back INTO the USA and since you aren't going to Australia with Ralphie and azygous, no problem.

 

[mamatink7]

I used my MHP last September for my Cream Legbars. It's still hot here in Texas. I put it on medium and adjust down from there. They did fine with it. I had 2 week olds and 3 day olds. The older ones would sit on top while the babies would go underneath. Even when its hot outside, they still need some warmth for the first week or so. I think I took it out after 3 weeks or so. I bought 2 of these this year. Mine were a bit cheaper when I bought them back in Feb. It's working fine. It's on high right now with new babies under it. This is how I have it set up. I have the pad bungied underneath. Here it is in use. Babies were hatched this past Saturday, and they went out in the brooder on Monday. They love to press up against it with their backs to warm themselves. I have the towel pulled back to see the chicks better. They duck under and go right in. I only had to show them once. They put themselves to bed at night. My newest additions. Two boys & one girl. Blooie how's the hatch going? Hatching isn't easy, at least not for me. I am getting better. I improved my hatch by 300% this time! LOL

awwww such precious additions♡ what breed are they? Love those little fluff balls.

 

[duluthralphie]

I would be so afraid to ever smuggle anything even and egg...

They would see me sweating and be able to follow the trail of water following me. Besides on the way their, they would ask why I have the egg carton, and I would blurt out" So I can smuggle an egg back into the country"....



I bet they would even pull my NPIP stuff...... I bought some eggs from a NPIP guy and I did not know he had failed to have his annual inspection done they quarantined me for that until I fixed it..can you imagine what they would do bringing eggs from Oz?

I would be in Leavenworth.

 

[Coop de Grass]

Now I know why the towel is covered with Press and Seal. By the time the chicks are 2 weeks old, it gets gross really fast! Ah, the joys of chicken poop! At least the coop has Sweet pdz under the roosts. Now if I could just come up with a try for the top of the MHP and put Sweet pdz in that.

 

[TerryH]

Now I know why the towel is covered with Press and Seal. By the time the chicks are 2 weeks old, it gets gross really fast! Ah, the joys of chicken poop! At least the coop has Sweet pdz under the roosts. Now if I could just come up with a try for the top of the MHP and put Sweet pdz in that.

8 or our 10 now sleep on top. The other 2 still go under. The issue is that all 10 of them pile on top of each other on the top of the MHP during the day. We are using puppy pads on top of the press and seal and changing them out every day or 2. They are little pooping machines.

 

[aart]

Now I know why the towel is covered with Press and Seal. By the time the chicks are 2 weeks old, it gets gross really fast!

I went with @Blooie 's suggestion of using an old towel and just tossing it when I took the MHP out,
but I had a P&S covered piece of thin plywood under the towel(good thing too).