my chicks are afraid of the dark

[sis_cin]

my 5 week old baby girls have been in the laundry room since they were 3 days old with a red brooder light-last week we turned the light off because they are big enough to be without it, and they squak terribly for 2 hours when it gets dark, weve triied a radio, a fan, a flashlight putting a cover over their pen...any ideas?

 

[annek]

Mine are almost 9 weeks old and I turn off the light when I do the last water change at night. They cry for 15-20 minutes still. I don't know if they will ever stop, I will be putting them in the coop this weekend so hopefully they will stop there. I think they are like little kids!

 

[Mahlzeit]

Thats new to me. I have never had a problem with mine doing that. I'm curious to hear how many people have had this problem.

 

[chicken+quail=luv]

My quail have done this, but it wasn't because of the dark. The lights were all on downstairs at night, and when everyone went upstairs (lights still on, I know, sometimes I waste energy

) they started squawking. Probably from loneliness.

 

[RAWR]

aw, poor babiez. but i imagine they'll get used to sleeping with out it. mayby get them a nightlight:]
?????

 

[mechagrue]

Ha, my chicks did the same thing! They were so loud that I started turning out the lights at 9PM. I go to bed at 10PM, so this meant that I spent an hour watching television in the dark (with the sound turned up, so I could hear it over the cheeping). By 10PM they would have quieted down enough that I could get some sleep.

Two things changed:

1. They gradually got used to the darkness, and every night they freaked out less and less.

2. I moved to a gradual shut-down. I would turn off one light, wait 5 minutes, turn off the next light, etc. It frightened them less when the lighting levels dropped gradually. As opposed to suddenly being plunged into darkness.

 

[BuffsRus]

I was just telling another chicken friend that I felt like I was "Ferberizing" the chicks! Just like some people do with their babies, my little ones just seem to have to "cry" it out and then they fall asleep fine. Makes for a noisy bedtime though.

 

[SimplyForties]

Mine too. Not big fans of change are these chickies! Sometimes during the day I notice they're all at the other end of the brooder so I assume they're too hot and turn off the light. They're fine with that but woe be unto me if I turn the light off at night! There's no standing for that. Maybe the trick is to turn the light off while it's still daytime, allowing nature's "dimmer" to work. Hmm...I may give that a try.

 

[fargosmom]

I made sure we turned the lights off in a sequence that simulated dusk - gradually getting darker, instead of plunging into pitch black. This seemed to be much more comfortable for the chicks - they'd cheep for a while but not very long. Maybe a light on a dimmer would help? It stands to reason that their primitive little brains are pre-wired to expect the sun to come up and go down a certain way - alot of our brain and body functions are regulated by light levels.

 

[goldnchocolate]

I use a nightlight