Splitting Chick Order With Friends

[Naerwyn]

How exciting! What kind of chicks are you expecting in the order, and which are yours?
Welcome to BYC!!
I'm happy to follow your chicken journey!

 

[Folly's place]

Many hatcheries recommend that the chicks go under a heat lamp for the first couple of days, not only a brooder plate. I've found this to be best advice, and lost chicks when we tried only the brooder plate when they arrived.
After that bad experience, we have a heat lamp, floor temp about 95F, at one end of our brooder ( a 100 gallon stock tank) and the heat plate goes in there in a couple of days, when the chicks are stronger, and eating and drinking well.
Mary

 

[Naerwyn]

Many hatcheries recommend that the chicks go under a heat lamp for the first couple of days, not only a brooder plate. I've found this to be best advice, and lost chicks when we tried only the brooder plate when they arrived.
After that bad experience, we have a heat lamp, floor temp about 95F, at one end of our brooder ( a 100 gallon stock tank) and the heat plate goes in there in a couple of days, when the chicks are stronger, and eating and drinking well.
Mary

Do you live someplace with exceptionally cold climate?
I hatch Sebrights (notorious for being delicate, 'they' say) and raise them purely underneath a Brinsea brooder plate, and I have never lost one chick. I don't even own a heat lamp.

 

[Folly's place]

Shipped chicks are usually way more stressed than home raised chicks, and that's why the heat lamp makes a difference immediately.
Mary

 

[Naerwyn]

Shipped chicks are usually way more stressed than home raised chicks, and that's why the heat lamp makes a difference immediately.
Mary

I had a batch shipped in this time last year, and had no losses whatsoever. I wonder if the difference in our experiences are due to environmental factors- where the chicks are from, weather, shipping/handling, etc.
Not to say that the heat lamp wouldn't help (because I definitely think it could), but I don't want this person to be discouraged by the lack of a heat lamp.