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

[barred2rock]

I had my MHP wrapped in a pillow case & plastic wrap. In an attempt to get as close as possible to the MHP, the chicks were tearing the plastic wrap and getting stuck inside.

I had to remove the plastic wrap.

ETA: Can some of you post suggestions/pics how to covering & protecting your heat pad? I'm sure there are some in this threat, but that's a lot of post to sort through. Thanks!

P.S. I have zero ability or equipment to sew. lol

 

[Blooie]

They're chicks, and with chicks come poop. <sigh> Who made up that silly rule anyway?? Wrapping it in a pillowcase that you can just fold over seems to be the best bet, and yep, some might leak through onto the pad. Bee says that you can just take off the pillowcase and give it a good shake so most of the poop, dried by the heat, comes off, then put it back on. And, with my Sunbeam pad anyway, I can take the cord off and toss the entire thing in the washer when I'm done with it so that eases my mind and I don't stress about it as much as I did in the beginning. If you are using a different one, check the instruction sheet and see if yours is washable as well.

Plastic wrapping the whole thing is an invitation to them doing just what yours have done. I used Press 'n Seal over a towel, and really pressed that stuff down tight. Then I could wipe it off with a paper towel, and when it got really gunky I just pulled that off and put fresh down on top. That got to be a hassle sometimes, and it was useless when brooding outdoors because I wasn't seeing it all the time to tend to it, so I finally blew off the Press 'n Seal too. I just bought a stack of old towels from Goodwill and they are just for brooding chicks. One gets nasty, pull it off and replace it. I try to keep straw on top, but they have this bad chicky habit of scratching that off the top.

It's just an issue with MHP that makes us have to make some concessions, and one of those is keeping the pad halfway clean. Just have to find what works for you, I guess. Wish I had a better answer for you.

 

[stacyh40]

Quote:
I used the press and seal and my chicks haven't been able to tear it

 

[Victoria-nola]

I had my MHP wrapped in a pillow case & plastic wrap. In an attempt to get as close as possible to the MHP, the chicks were tearing the plastic wrap and getting stuck inside.

I had to remove the plastic wrap.

ETA: Can some of you post suggestions/pics how to covering & protecting your heat pad? I'm sure there are some in this threat, but that's a lot of post to sort through. Thanks!

P.S. I have zero ability or equipment to sew. lol

Yes plastic wrap will not at all work. The stuff some of the other folks are using are some kind of heat-cling wrap or something. They will have to speak to that. [I see that Blooie has now responded but I'll go ahead and post what I've written here about what I did.]

This is what I did, and I'm sorry but I have no photos to show you:

1. Take a flannel pillowcase that you don't care about-- you can often get them at thrift stores, or you could cut a piece from an old flannel sheet-- and cover the heating pad, letting the cord come out one corner of the open end. Fold the pillowcase over the pad so that the extra material is on top (so only 1 layer of fabric between the bottom side and pad). Orient the pad so that the "warm" side is the down-facing side, that is, the smooth side that will face the chicks. (Some pads get warmer on one side than another.) The pad I used, the recommended Sunbeam model, comes with an integrated flannel cover already, so you only want 1 layer added to that on the chick-side.

2, Then I took a needle and thread and sewed the pillowcase to itself to close up all openings-- I just made big stitches to close it up on the top, where the folds come together. But as Blooie just noted, you can just fold it and not sew it. When you attach the P+P, the folds will be held tight (see next step).

3. The P+P gets tucked into the UNDERSIDE of your wire frame (like the inside of a bowl)-- make sure your wire frame is strong. You connect the P+P to the wire frame with the tiny, thin bungee cords you can buy-- 3 or 4 of the cords hooked across the short way. This puts the P+P close to the chicks and they can't get trapped between the P+P and the wire frame (as has happened to folks when they put P+P on top of the wire frame). Place the P+P into the wire frame in such a way that the cord sticks out where you need it to go in order to plug it in.

4. Take your wire frame, now with the P+P attached, and turn it over into its correct orientation. What you have is a wire frame exposed with the P+P attached underneath. The P+P should be firmly attached. I then covered the wire frame with a hand-towel sized towel laid flat, with an overhang over the front edge as most people's photos will show. I just changed the towel as needed. So no iron-on plastic required. I also put straw on the top, as many photos show. As the chicks started exploring, they would scratch the straw off the top-- I changed out that straw, and towel, as needed to keep the whole space clean.


NOTES:
a. I guess if there was a determined chick they might crawl UNDER the towel on top, but the good thing is that towel is not connected to anything so if they kept crawling they will come out the other side. I did 2 batches of MHP, 1 with chicks and one with guinea keets, and neither time did any chicks crawl under the towel on top.

b. I did lose a guinea keet when the wire frame collapsed from the weight of the keets on top. The keets are extremely tiny when born and I had flattened out the frame so that their backs could touch the pad (as is correct), but my wire didn't have enough spring in it (strength) once it was flattened that far. In my case I wound up putting a couple wooden blocks into place so that the frame couldn't collapse, and increased the curve into the frame again as soon as possible with the growth of the keets. Ideally no blocks would be used since that creates an obstacle under MHP. This was not an issue with the chicks (chickens) because they are born larger and the frame was perfectly strong for them.



This is probably more information than you actually needed, but I decided to write it out anyway.

--Victoria

 

[Blooie]

Well done!!! Yayyyy! And thanks!

 

[Victoria-nola]

Well done!!! Yayyyy! And thanks!

awww thank you, Blooie, your stamp of approval is important to me! You know, I think it might be good to write an article with the current practices that people could link to (and the article could be edited as needed as best-practice improvements and changes occur). It really is tough for people to try to figure out best practice by wading through this wonderful but extremely long thread.

--Victoria

 

[Blooie]

awww thank you, Blooie, your stamp of approval is important to me! You know, I think it might be good to write an article with the current practices that people could link to (and the article could be edited as needed as best-practice improvements and changes occur). It really is tough for people to try to figure out best practice by wading through this wonderful but extremely long thread.

--Victoria

Boy, don't I know it!! Even I've changed how I do things since the beginning, adding things from posts on here that made more sense or could prevent problems that they'd had but that I hadn't had - knowing the word "yet" was never far away.

I've even thought about kinda letting this thread die and starting over with a revised thread, but oh! the valuable photos and explanations that they'd never see......'tis a conundrum!

 

[The Golden Egg5]

Thank you guys for the awesome idea for the MHP!! They really love it!

 

[Victoria-nola]

Thank you guys for the awesome idea for the MHP!! They really love it!

I know! I think it makes a big difference in the temperaments of the adults too. I don't have vast experience but from my first MHP I wound up with a lap chicken and a broody hen-- which were firsts here. I think it's the result of the chicks feeling secure and having a more natural development of their bodies and immune systems.

--Victoria

 

[Victoria-nola]

Quote:
Yeah, I don't think starting over would be good-- there is too much of value here.

And yes, as I've read the thread I've seen you change your practices too. So, I really do think an article, that could change over time, as a central place for people to get information, then they can come here and ask questions (article would include link to this thread in more than one place). I think it would really help people to know the best place to start and not have to reinvent the wheel every time. I'm planning to write an article for my thread on the modified hoop coop, for just this reason-- it's hard for people to sort through a thread that is about developing a process, but MHP is a much larger and immediate issue so what if I worked up an article, based on your original post to this thread, adding the current best practices, then you could edit and comment, maybe get comments from others, add more pics if needed, and then you could post it. The document itself could be edited by either of us and then re-posted in edited form. If you don't mind being the person who posts it, you'd be the person to re-post edits in future, whoever did the actual document edits.