Please tell me if I am doing this right!?

[momma's chickens]

I have two different ages of babies, four weeks and six weeks. I also have two hens, both have been here there whole lives, one is four years old and the other one year old. I have had the babies, both ages mixed out in the coop with the hens for three and a half weeks now. They have been in their own area that they could see through with two heat lamps. I have actually changed the area several different times, the different age babies were seperated and then both together and now they can run the whole coop but can get away from the hens if need be.

Tonight I decided that the six week olds need to learn to sleep on the roost. I have several very small roosts for them but they didn't really use them, just all slept on a heap in the floor.

I wait until almost dark and then put the babies on the roost. It is a three tier roost and I put four on the middle roost and three on the top roost, because they would not calm down with all on one roost. There is plently of room however they want to roost. The older hens are on the bottom roost the same one they have always been on. I keep going out there to check on them, and the older hens are on the bottom roost but not sleeping more like standing up. The babies are all asleep on the roost and the little ones are happy in their area. The little ones still have a heat light on them. I had a heat light on the older babies, but it was causing problem because they were fighting over the light and the older hens would not settle down at all.

It is suppose to get down to 40 tonight but they are not huddle together they are all spread out and look so cute.

Is this how to get everybody happy or am I missing something or am I totally going about this all wrong.

Advice or comments please!

 

[Cetawin]

I think everything will be fine as long as there is a heat source for them to go under if they get cold or get away from if they get hot. If they are not huddled together that means they are comfortable and neither cold nor too hot.

Good luck with them.

 

[momma's chickens]

Thanks I think I will go out there one last time before I go to sleep to check again. My goodness, I am treating them more like children than like chickens.

 

[momma's chickens]

I must have lost my mind, I went to get into bed and then I had visions of them being cold or something so I go back out there and check and decide I had better plug the light in right over them again. Well this of course causes them all to wake up, what was I thinking????

Turned the light off again because they weren't huddle together or anything. One of them doesn't move through this whole process so of course I pick her up to make sure she is okay. She is fine.

Come back in the house and I am still fretting so I go unplug the monitor from our four year olds room and take it back out there that way I can listen for unnormal squawking out there. I am just hoping everything is okay.

So it was three more trips out to the chicken coop for me, little miss terrified of the dark. Hopefully we can now all get some sleep.

 

[S0rcy]

Yep, I did that back and forth thing 4 times a night for the first four days. I even took a day off school to see that they were ok! My biggest likes to sleep on the roost. She drapes herself over it and hangs her head down like she's dead drunk, it's so funny! The others will get up occasionally, but she's the only one so far who sleeps there consistently.

 

[Cetawin]

hahahahaha I have my girls right here in the living room in my HOT TUB frame (I did not want them crowded in the brooder) and I have slept on the futon beside them since Friday when I put them in it.

Just in case someone gets out, falls off the perch, knocks over the water, is too hot, is too cold, is wanting to be picked up, is wanting to be patted.....you know....just in case they need anything.

I cannot IMAGINE what I will be like when they go outside...bet I add sleeping quarters to the coop for me.

So, you are not crazy...we are just 'different' and 'concerned mamas'

 

[Gindee77]

I didn't get much sleep last night, it was the first night of our 2 & 3 week old chicks being out in the coop. We have a baby monitor on them and two heat lamps because they are separated by chicken wire right now since they both came out of different brooders. They were fine, no undue cheeping or anything. I was the one who was a nervous wreck!! So I can so relate to what you're going thru!!

 

[Cetawin]

Amazing how that works....they sleep and we lie awake worryng if they are sleeping okay

 

[MissPrissy]

Your chickens are going to be just fine. You are doing every thing right -plus some extra.

 

[Gindee77]

Shortly after I posted here on this thread, I was listening to the baby monitor and I started hearing the weirdest noise. I had to wonder to myself if a baby chick can sound similar to a cat!

After listening some more, I realized what I was hearing!!!

>^..^<

We had set a live trap to catch a coon that's been hanging around, figuring we'd relocate him to a nice woodsy area when/if we can catch him. Well, at least we know our live trap works and that the baby monitor picks up all sorts of sounds even outside of the shed the chicks are in. We had caught a neighborhood cat!!! It's the first thing we caught in this trap and we've had it set for days! My DH opened the trap and that cat scurried out of here as fast as his little legs could carry him!! He probably won't be back in a while...even tho he did have a nice meal of Vienna sausages!!