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Well that did not work..I think it is too cold..it is supposed to be warmer tomorrow. I tented it a bit with weather plastic to try to contain more heat. It is going to drop to -10 tonight. I even added a heat lamp. I know I am never going to do this again..I am not going to sleep worrying about it going out. I have it zip tied and rope tied. and I put a metal pan on top of it to protect the bulb.
I've been thinking..... and I'm thinking I won't do such an early winter broody in the future. I did it this time because I wanted them to come into lay earlier in the summer and I was intending on brooding some whether I had a broody or not. This is because I have so few chickens that I wanted more eggs earlier in the season.
In the future I think I'll wait till at least March before I'd consider a broody - or perhaps late February. I like that yours hatched quite a bit later than mine and it won't be long till things will be warmer more consistently! When mine were that little they all fit and it worked quite well with mom keeping them warm.
Mine are now 5 weeks old - only 4 of them - but one thing I didn't take into consideration is their size at this age and still need to get under mom because of the colder temps at night. It's getting quite hard to accomplish that. Not a problem, really, because they're pretty well acclimated and are pretty much out all day long now. But if there was a really cold snap like you're having they'd still need under her better than they can fit (LOL). [
It's really quite comical watching them all try to get under there. The ones with the longer tail feathers always are sticking out...they're a couple of pretty big kids compared to the other 2.]
And all this time I've had in the back of my mind that if she is ready to quit being a mom I always have the heat lamp as a backup but she has been very faithful!
I think she began roost training this week. I've found her and at least one of them up on the high roost during the day and the others working at getting up there.
