New to chickens, chicks huddling away from radiant heater

[Alexsquared]

Hello everyone. First post here and we are thankful to have this community as a resource. We just ventured into raising chickens and our kiddos are super excited. We got 6 chicks from a local farmer yesterday that are 2 weeks old. Get got them setup in a crate last night in our garage which is running between 68-70. Inside we have a cozy coop heater. All is going well, but one thing that seemed odd was that they weren't hanging by the heater. We checked on them before going to bed and they were huddled together away from the heater. It would make sense if the crate space was overly hot, but it doesn't seem to be. We have a tarp on top to try and contain some heat and cardboard wrapped around the sides to help contain them and the heat too. Just want to make sure we are doing everything right. We'd hate to lose any.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

Try a thermometer, if it is over 95 F it is to hot.

 

[Brooks_]

I am not familiar with that heater. Can you get some temp readings from a few spots inside?

 

[Brooks_]

And

 

[newchck]

In my personal experience chicks do pretty well staying colder than they do hot. My chicks stayed way under the "recommended temps" the whole time and were super active and happy. When I first got mine they were panting because they were so dang hot. (we had 5 chicks) What is the temp of the room they are in? I personally would recommened keeping the top open and the 3 sides covered so they have plenty of ventilation, but are also free of drafts. Edit: Sorry reread your post and saw that you said the garage runs at 68-70. I would take the heater away and see how they do honestly (only for an hour or two), at 2 weeks old they may just huddle together for warmth and be just fine.

 

[Alexsquared]

Try a thermometer, if it is over 95 F it is to hot.

We have a little thermometer we got from the feed store. It showed 68 in the garage. When we put it in the crate it showed 70, and it never went above 70 despite the heater being on. That is what was alarming us.

 

[newchck]

We have a little thermometer we got from the feed store. It showed 68 in the garage. When we put it in the crate it showed 70, and it never went above 70 despite the heater being on. That is what was alarming us.

Hm, it may be drafty with the front open? maybe cover all of the sides and leave the top open? Are they chirping very loudly? Maybe look up some videos of chicks chirping when they are cold. It is different then when they are just running about chirping happily. I can't imagine they are cold if they are away from the heater though.

 

[Alexsquared]

Thanks for all the suggestions. We will take a second thermometer we have to check it too. Normally, the front is also mostly covered. We just lower the flap when we want to access them. The tarp isn't necessarily coveting the entire thing as we wanted some ventilation too, plus it has a few 2" or so holes in it they weren't going nutty in there by any means. They honestly seemed really content. I like the idea of finding videos of cold chicks though so we have a baseline.

 

[TheAlrightyGina]

Have you put them near the heater? They may simply not know that it's for warmth, as I think you have to be pretty close to benefit from them.

 

[wyoDreamer]

From what I read when I looked it up on the internet, the Cozy Coop Heater is a radiant heater. It will not heat a space (or the air in that space), it heats objects. It is intended to heat a chick that is standing right next to it, not heat the entire brooder.

If the chicks are actively eating, drinking and scratching around and only huddling together for sleep, I wouldn't worry about them. It they are dashing to get food and then dashing back to the huddle to get warm, then you have a problem.

They look like they are feathering in nicely. Did the farmer have them in a brooder, or how were they housed before you got them?