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

[aart]

Quote:

I keep telling people I could design a filter for a duck pond but no one believes me...

I played with small ornamental pond filtration for a fww years, would be interested to see what you have for this.

Then you know the surface area of the filter is important to water filtration. But there are other things going on in a filter. First you have to remove the particulates.... Debris, plant materials, dissolved poo, etc etc.... The last is what I think makes people assume I am crazy. But if you treat this as if it were a black water problem.... or lowgrade sewage treatment instead of "Pond must be clear and drinkable"

first step is to filter out the chunks..... Which you can do with a prefilter made of swamp cooler pads.... Large stuff. They can be knocked off into the compost pile every so often... then rinsed and replaced.
Then the smaller chunks ..... smaller fiber filter.... Cleanable
Now you can start the biological filter.... Coarse gravel, Medium gravel, Sand, separated by screen. In those gravel/sand particles will reside Aerobic bacteria. These are infinately better at dealing with organic waste. As long as water travels through them to provide oxygen they are good at what they do. Once the water makes it through them then you can deal with the inorganic.... In aquariums Charcoal is one of the absorbers.... but in a pond system you can use pond plants.


The one difference is Mine would be cleanable at each stage so the filtration system could be reset every so often.

It may even make sense to have each medium be in separate containers.... Like I said I havent built one yet

deb
Yep, am familiar with upflow sand/gravel filters.
Agrees, detritus must be removed from water column.

I did 4 separate containers, each with a valved waste drain, and a valve between each container.
Gravity flow, containers set at same level as pond, pump in last container.
1st was vortex to drop heavy debris out, water comes from bottom of pond and enters on tangent to 'spin' out debris, exits at top thru coarse filter.
2nd, multi layered filter, coarse to fine.
3rd, bio media with aeration.
4th, nothing but submersible pump, returns to pond.
Smaller more frequent water changes done by isolating vortex chamber and dumping heavies.
All was small scale...it was a prototype, 'let's play with this concept'.

 

[Jemezhens]

No on the it degrees or no on the the heat lamp? sorry I'm old school, i was always taught that nothing but the heat lamp at the temperature of the sun would do.

 

[Blooie]

Really?! This is awesome info, so what the concept tells me is that if they are to cold 86 degrees is ok, if they are too hot they'll get out. Should I use the heat lamp at all in the first week?

um.... NO. LOL....

Yep....nope! No heat lamp needed ever with this system. Just learn to watch and listen to your chicks....if they're too warm they'll let you know by leaving and not wanting to go back under. Too cold and they won't come out at all, or sit in a pile huddled together cheeping like crazy. You should hear a soft little churtling sound when they bed down. You don't want night lights, heat lamps - just the brooder, the cave, and the babies.

 

[Jemezhens]

Ok, thanks I'm going to try this, after all when my girls have had babies on their own I don't try to regulate temperature. Just a new experience in being the mom... Thanks!

 

[Blooie]

No problem! Just remember - it is as simple as it sounds. In the beginning folks sometimes think that there has to be something wrong...chicks aren't acting like they normally do in a brooder. Nope, they are acting like they normally do under a broody!

We'll need pictures, of course!

 

[lazy gardener]

Yep, folks who make this system too difficult are the same ones who would bring a broody and her babies in the house "to keep the babies warm" or even put a heat lamp out in the broody cage for the same reason. HELLO?!!!! It's so very easy to spend too much time worrying about chicks. And, I've done it to the max, running down to the garage in my jammies multiple times during a very cold night, trying to regulate the temp in the brooder when I was using a heat lamp. This system is so very easy. Just turn it on, make sure it stays on, let the chicks tell you when they need it turned down. Last night, when chicks were in the basement, I went down to check them before retiring for the night. They had left one little one to stand guard. One tiny little head sticking out from under the pad, all the rest out of sight! Tonight, after moving them out to the hoop coop, I checked on them, and there was a row of little faces peering out at me!

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:

I keep telling people I could design a filter for a duck pond but no one believes me...

I played with small ornamental pond filtration for a fww years, would be interested to see what you have for this.

Then you know the surface area of the filter is important to water filtration. But there are other things going on in a filter. First you have to remove the particulates.... Debris, plant materials, dissolved poo, etc etc.... The last is what I think makes people assume I am crazy. But if you treat this as if it were a black water problem.... or lowgrade sewage treatment instead of "Pond must be clear and drinkable"

first step is to filter out the chunks..... Which you can do with a prefilter made of swamp cooler pads.... Large stuff. They can be knocked off into the compost pile every so often... then rinsed and replaced.
Then the smaller chunks ..... smaller fiber filter.... Cleanable
Now you can start the biological filter.... Coarse gravel, Medium gravel, Sand, separated by screen. In those gravel/sand particles will reside Aerobic bacteria. These are infinately better at dealing with organic waste. As long as water travels through them to provide oxygen they are good at what they do. Once the water makes it through them then you can deal with the inorganic.... In aquariums Charcoal is one of the absorbers.... but in a pond system you can use pond plants.


The one difference is Mine would be cleanable at each stage so the filtration system could be reset every so often.

It may even make sense to have each medium be in separate containers.... Like I said I havent built one yet

deb
Yep, am familiar with upflow sand/gravel filters.
Agrees, detritus must be removed from water column.

I did 4 separate containers, each with a valved waste drain, and a valve between each container.
Gravity flow, containers set at same level as pond, pump in last container.
1st was vortex to drop heavy debris out, water comes from bottom of pond and enters on tangent to 'spin' out debris, exits at top thru coarse filter.
2nd, multi layered filter, coarse to fine.
3rd, bio media with aeration.
4th, nothing but submersible pump, returns to pond.
Smaller more frequent water changes done by isolating vortex chamber and dumping heavies.
All was small scale...it was a prototype, 'let's play with this concept'.

wanna do a thread?

deb

 

[bruceha2000]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilapia

I am afraid they are warm water fish..... dont do well below 75 degrees.... You can raise em though in a water tote 250 gallons or so and they will get large enough to harvest for dinner. They are also vegetarians pretty much and you can raise them with fresh water shrimp. Cray fish too but Cray fish are pretty aggressive and need to get out of the water occasionally.

The nice part about Tilapia is they are mouth brooders. Female lays her eggs on a rock or strata Male firtilizes them then the female scoops em up to protect them till they hatch. Then they continue to provide a safe home for them till they dont fit any more....

I have a 110 gallon tank to raise up the breeders, It should hold four to six of them. They will stay in the house and hatch out the fry. That I can keep temperature controlled with an aquarium water heater. All that tank needs is a room where the temperature doesnt fluctuate. You can remove the fry when they are ready with either a Fry Trap or a fine net. You feed Daphnia or fine fish food till they get bigger. Daphnia are live food very very small crustaceans..... They will come in on the duck weed Win Win Win.

Two or three of those totes and I should have enough fish for the year. They grow to harvest size under ideal conditions in about 240 days or around eight months, for a one pound fish. the extras can be sold as fingerilings.... or fed to the chickens. or processed into dog food.

There will be no waste.

deb

Sooo, I could raise them in the house starting in January, stick them in the pond in June and eat them starting August. Well, if I COULD. The pond is really shallow, Probably plenty warm in the summer. I never understand how the fish and frogs make it through the winter. Though I never see any big fish so maybe the eggs overwinter in the mud bottom or something.

This Tilapia thing sure sounds interesting. I never even thought about raising fish before. Of course, but probably requires a lot of money and work, but still. I never really eat fish much and kinda hate it (but I think I just haven't had it cooked right, found some new recipes), ....

Tilapia is a very mild flavor fish. Lots of times when people don't like fish it is because it has too strong a "fish" flavor.

Really?! This is awesome info, so what the concept tells me is that if they are to cold 86 degrees is ok, if they are too hot they'll get out. Should I use the heat lamp at all in the first week?

No heat lamp EVER. Don't measure the temp in the cave, put the back of your hand up against the heating pad, that is what the chicks do with the backs of their bodies.

If your friend has a broody bird, it might be worth setting up a brooding pen in the coop, moving her there and stuffing the chicks under her. More natural than a MHP

, they will be protected by the hen and integrating immediately with the rest of the birds. Less likely to run into integration issues than if you wait until they are a few months old.

 

[Sallys Mom]

For those using dog crates...we had a 3 day old leghorn jump from the top of the cave to the top of the cardboard and hop out 3x. We had to reinforce our crate with a finer mesh wire. I never saw this one coming. She is just not content with her buddies. She screams when we leave the room. The other two are tucked in sleeping and she's just hollering. I guess she's a people bird.

 

[saraem]

This is a weird question but...has anyone ever implemented MHP with older chicks?

I have three 4-week-olds and one 2-week old in the brooder, first time chicken owner. I didn't hear of MHP until I had already purchased a heat lamp and had my brooder set up for a couple weeks, so I kind of wrote it off as something to do next time. However, I am just hating having a light on them all night (I've been turning it off during the day when it's warm indoors) and I'm also grappling with the fact that the big girls probably don't need a light AT ALL anymore at this point, yet I have to keep it on for the baby. She usually sleeps closest to the light, tucked under the wing of my RIR (actually quite cute), then the Australorp and Buff Orpington, all in a line.

So here are my more specific questions:

1. Would it be worth it to set up MHP now (we would use it again on our next batch of chicks, so I'm not terribly concerned with the monetary aspect)?

2. How would it work with an older/taller chick?

3. Do you think the baby would even go in there since the big girls likely wouldn't? Or maybe they would since they all like to sleep together? She does sleep alone under the light sometimes during the day if I don't shut it off.

4. If not worth the set up at this point, does anyone have suggestions for either making it darker at night with the light or making the light more concentrated on the floor of the brooder?

Thanks!