Safe heat source and Brooder set up?

[Welsh Ducky]

You might try dipping her beak in the food and water. Some are slow to learn . . .

I’ve see her eating and drinking though, but she just peeps!

 

[Parront]

I’ve see her eating and drinking though, but she just peeps!

Eating and drinking is GOOD! No pasted but? Loud distress is sometimes cold, but if the others are ok, you might try another heated brooder area. They might not let on under if there is limited space. Some who use lights put them at opposite ends of the brooder area to be sure all can get under the lights. I have not used the new brooders with no light.

 

[Chickengene]

They only use it for the first couple of weeks anyway....by three weeks they’ve mostly weaned themselves off heat and are with the adults most of the day,
3 weeks? They are integrated with the big'ns? At six weeks I moved them beside the big coop and two of the hens would literally attack the wire separating them.
Now at 12 weeks two of the hens cornered a pair of youngsters in their own coop. I had to rescue one of the young ones.

 

[Blooie]

She may just be suffering from shipping stress. It’s hard on them, and some suffer more than others.

Edited to add: Sorry, hit the post button accidentally. If you have or can get some poultry Nutridrench, a little of that can be just the boost she needs. It can be hard to administer by the dropper though, and messy as all get out. What I do is drip a bit on a Q-Tip and hold it at the side of her beak. When she cheeps, and she will, apply just a little pressure and some will go right down. It doesn’t take much. It bypasses the digestive system and is absorbed directly into the bloodstream and can often mean the difference between a chick making it or not.

Nutridrench is the only product I have in my chicken first aid kit - well, that and Margarita mix, which I find I usually need more often than anything else when raising chickens! You can put it in the waterer, but I hate treating chicks who don’t need it while not knowing of the one who does is getting enough. (Um, that would be the Nutridrench in the water, not the margarita mix....you don’t wanna share that.)

One other thing I hate to bring up, but feel in all honesty that I should, is that hatcheries don’t have the time to do a thorough health check on every single one of the thousands processed for shipping. And even if they did, some internal issues might not even be noticeable until they start eating, which they don’t do at the hatchery. So sometimes a chick may arrive with internal defects not apparent, and try as you might there is nothing you can do. The truth is that sometimes chicks just die. It stinks, but there you have it. The important thing to do is not make the mistake I did when my shipped Silkies were dropping like flies despite everything I tried - I focused so hard on those that I barely enjoyed the healthy ones. They got food and water, and I made sure they understood Mama Heating Pad, but aside from that all my time and energies were focused on trying to save chicks that ultimately didn’t make it anyway.

Good luck with her and your other babies!!

 

[Little Coop on Salt Creek]

Something else to add.. our first Speckled Sussex was a chirper to beat all chirpers! She was fine despite her chirping. As a matter of fact, she is my loudest sweetest girl to this day! I think she was chirping for attention, because whenever I was near she wouldn’t stop until she was picked up and held. So, my advice is check all of the other helpful folks suggestions: heat, butt, nutri-drench etc. first and if she’s still chirping, see if holding her will do the trick. You may just have a very vocal gal in the making.

 

[Lizzy733]

From a reptile owner, here's the basics on a hot\cold setup for anyone that's interested.
It should be pretty cheap in America or EU and has the benefit of allowing your chicks\ducklings to pick their comfort zone as they would with a handy walking heater (aka mum) nearby.

Notes on the Brooder:
You'll want to set up your brooder with one side dedicated to being 'hot' and another dedicated to being 'cold'. The chicks will return to the warm side for a heat 'top up' as needed, but should be all over the place when not. Food\water should generally be away from the heater, but not necessarily all the way over in the cold zone. If you're putting in a roost or a nest, that should be in the hot zone. Make sure you have a secure way to mount your bulb.
- I personally went with a good ceramic socket\heat cage combo which I mounted to a wide wooden plank. - I drilled a drop-light hole into the wood to make room for the wire and give the socket some space (it gets hot too) and laid this across the brooder to one side.

Heat Source:
Ceramic bulb -100w should be plenty of wiggle room for chilly nights and a great choice if your using a thermostat (as below) If you're heating in an air-conditioned space, 50w or 75w with a foot of clearance is probably fine. Without a thermostat, you'll be controlling the temperature by raising the heat source away from the chicks if they are getting too hot. If you're heating a large area with many chicks, using a 150w suspended high and over to one side of the brood space isn't a bad idea; I've also seen ceramic bulbs with built in fans available online to direct the heat, but haven't tried these myself. Ceramic bulbs provide radiant heat and will heat an entire area around them - making them 'best' at getting that gradient. They also take time to warm up and cool down when being turned on or off which is something to keep in mind.

IR 'Red' Bulb: These get very hot very quickly and direct the heat to a specific location. These are for pretty 'extreme' heating and not really suited for a brooder. It is recommended to always use a thermostat with one of these bulbs, but they also tend to 'shatter' under those conditions. If you're brooding in winter, this 'may' be appealing, but not something I would recommend for chicks. These are quick to heat up and the area will quickly lose heat when turned off.

Ceramic Socket - ceramic and IR bulbs get hot and they will melt a basic plastic socket so this is a safety must. If you're going for 150 watts+, double-check the socket's max wattage. They can handle all wattages below the max so putting a lower wattage bulb in a higher max wattage socket won't be an issue.

Heat Cage - active chicks could burn themselves if they can jump up and reach the ceramic bulb; the heat cage will not get hot enough to burn your chicks, but the bulb will.

A way to check the temp: You should really watch your chicks closely if you're not monitoring with one of the below, but should definitely check the hot\cold side at least once before putting your chicks in.
2 Probe Thermometer - One probe on the 'hot side' and the other furthest away on the 'cold side'. These are very cheap - if you don't get one of the below, I would recommend these for 'any' brooder setup. This is to allow for spot checking, so the probes don't really need to be secured. - Just be mindful if your chicks have kicked them out of the target zone to move them back into place.

IR Gun Thermometer - Point and click temp spot checker. If you do go in for one of these, you'll end up using it for all sorts of things as it's just something handy to have around. They're most accurate when within 1-2 ft of the spot you're checking.

Thermostat with Probe - The best 'no fuss' option, plug your Bulb into the thermostat and set a target temp range - attach the probe in the hot area where it won't get bumped or trampled. It will automatically turn your Bulb off and on to keep the temp within that zone. Definitely stick to ceramic bulbs with a thermostat - they release heat slowly when off and are fine with being turned off and on constantly.

As always, keep an eye on your chicks and gauge their comfort. The thermostat option should allow you to 'set and forget', but if you're brooding in cold conditions, you may need to be mindful of the room's ambient temperature as well and go for a higher wattage covering a larger area or restrict them to a smaller, more insulated brooder and scale up as they get more feathered and more cold tolerant.

 

[jsayles86]

Best and safest heat source for baby chicks, the “Eco Glow” from Brinsea. There are also less expensive knock-offs - check Amazon. With the Eco Glow no heat lamp is necessary. The chicks will use it at night and during the day they will come and go as they need the warmth.

 

[Rockdale Chick]

I use a heat plate and it's safe and doesn't keep the babies in light 24/7 which is not healthy.

 

[Blooie]

I have no particular reason for posting this little video, aside from the fact that it beautifully illustrates how well one of the methods of heat works. I am NOT posting it to say that my way is the only way because, as is apparent from the wealth of answers in this post, it certainly is not. But this is what you can do with a $20.00 heating pad and a scrap of wire fencing. Besides, it's cute! This is the 8th batch of chicks I've raised this way, using the exact same heating pad and frame I started out with years before. I just wash the pad between batches (and use it for my winter aches and pains, I must add) and tuck the frame in a rafter in the coop.

A couple of things to watch for. Our temps had finally warmed up to the 30s, but it had been raining for the past couple of days, too. The brooder pen is in the run. These new chicks were still in the stage of "the big monster is going to eat me"! In the beginning of the video, I was crouching and they didn't like me or that big camera eye staring at them. They wanted to get away and were cheeping the "distress" cheep loudly because I was between them and safety. They were huddled on the side where one of our portal doors are, and eyeing the holes in the bricks wanting to escape there if they could. Then I stood up and changed angles slightly. They make a beeline for their Mama Heating Pad. Listen to the almost silence that happens when they reach it. This video makes me smile every time I watch it.

Oh, you may hear me talking about a little chick that "died". It's one of the White Orpington chicks. When we were putting the chicks in the brooder, we didn't notice that we had an escapee. It was 29 degrees out there. When I went out that evening to lock up and check them, I saw just this little flat bit of fluff at the edge of the dust bath in the run. I scooped it up and it was cold, stiff, and I couldn't see any signs of life. I brought it in, stuck it in the incubator with the eggs in there, and it revived. When it started moving around enough to bump the eggs, I took it to the kitchen and tucked it in the folds of a heating pad wrapped in a towel for a little longer and giving it some Nutridrench. By late that night it was back out with the others, and I had a hard time identifying which one it even was after that. Never give up!

 

[RedDol]

I’ve raised babies before with a heat lamp. i haTED That the light was on all the time. I’m using the mama heating pad cave and i love it. Not hard to set up. Instead of making the wire frame I use one o of those coated wire step shelves like you use for sipce jars in a kitchencabinet. Just covered it with a heating pad and put the whole thing inside a pair o of old flannel pajamas with the leg so tucked underneath.