Alright, so if I keep my chicks inside the house (basement) in a cardboard box until they are fully feathered, on paper towels that I change twice a day... I should get the "Sunbeam Heating Pad | X-Large | 12-Inch x 24-Inch" and use bungee cords to attach it to an arched piece of wire shelving, with a piece of cardboard and then a towel on top?
No need to keep them in the house until they are fully feathered, the key thing about being fully feathered is that is when they don't need external heat, they can do it themselves. If you were to read the entire 1150 pages, a mere 11,500 posts
you would find that
@Blooie broods outdoors sometimes in sub freezing temperatures.
I would suggest you get the coop ready before the kids show up. They don't grow as stupidly fast as Cornish X meat birds but they do grow pretty quick and you will find that your box in the basement will seem to shrink in a short time. And they won't stay inside it unless you have a cover on it. Since these are your first birds, no need to have a brooder area set up in the coop, they can have the whole thing. When you build it, it can be entirely open (ie just hardware cloth) on the none exterior wall sides or you have have a solid half wall on those sides which would save some on the cost of the HW cloth.
As to when to get them, check the hatchery of your choice's website to see how many they will ship as a minimum. In the colder months, most have a larger minimum and some send "packing peanuts" (ie extra chicks, probably male) to maintain a larger heat mass. That would be a problem for you since you likely have a max number of birds and you likely can't have roosters. Everyone has their favorite hatchery so check out a number of them. Since you are in Ohio, you might even decide to pick them up instead of having them shipped. Saves money (for example I use Meyer and shipping for a small number of chicks is about $35, no packing peanuts) and stress on the chicks. Stoney Ridge Farm has a video of their tour of Meyer on their YouTube channel, they came all the way up from North Carolina.
Most breeds start laying at 20 - 26 weeks of age though I have had "outliers" on both sides. Unless you add light in the coop, most won't lay in the winter after their first adult moult. If you get them in the spring/early summer that USUALLY means when they are about 1.5 years old. I've no experience but I would guess that a December born chick would tart laying in April and likely moult the following fall and not lay again until Feb/Mar. I've had 2 batches that were June hatch and 2 that were late April. The June girls started late Oct to Dec and laid through their first winter (I don't add light) the April ones started in Sept/Oct did not. I got them earlier thinking they would start laying when the older girls stopped in the fall (which they did) EXPECTING them to lay through the winter. Only 1 bird of 9 did so. Small amount of data but the chicks I got this year are June hatch, I will see if they lay through the winter or not.
If you are only getting 5 chicks, you can use the regular size pad. I put mine on the underside of the support and encase the entire thing in an old pillowcase with Gorilla tape holding the case and pad up against the frame. There are no gaps between the case and the pad that the chicks can get into since the Gorilla tape covers the pillowcase opening as part of the "attachment" process.
A word of caution, if you lose power, the digital pad will not turn on after your electric comes back on, you must turn it on again and make sure you press the button so it stays on.
This is VERY important to remember.
