Temperature & Behavior Q's...

[oceanwidedesigns]

I'm probably worrying too much... but I'm absolutely confused by our chicks' behaviors.

We have two australopes and a buff orpington -- the australopes look to be almost two weeks, and the buff is about a week old. The temperature in the brooding box is just about 80-85F, under the lamp. The ladies sleep just about everywhere in the box... but they tend to "cuddle." They aren't climbing on each other... they're just always close. I haven't seen any of the behaviors mentioned in the dummies book about the temperature being off -- just that they are always sticking together. No panting or shrieking either... just content chirps. They're very active and love scratching around. Everyone's eyes are clear and poop looks good.

Should I be concerned about the closeness?

 

[Fred's Hens]

Nope. Sounds fine to me.

 

[oceanwidedesigns]

Thanks

I just noticed some of the bedding was wet around some recent poos... So I moved the lamp a little bit away incase they were getting too hot.

 

[earnhardtlvr]

The first 4 babies I got were all sisters and they slept together all the time. As I have introduced other chicks some of them are just natural huddler's!

As long as they aren't chirping away and seem unhappy, it's fine! They r just getting to know each other!

 

[oceanwidedesigns]

so is chirping bad with chicks? When they're really active, they chirp as they have their fun... they don't chirp when they're sleeping... and they only have a distressed-like chirp if my hands are in the box and/or I'm picking them up.

 

[earnhardtlvr]

Quote:
LOL...the distressed chirping is what u don't want!

mine are between 4-6 weeks and some still freak out when i pick them up and i handle them eveery day! so don't get discouraged. if they r chirping and someone isn't handling them, then u need to find out what is freaking them out. They really will tell u if something is wrong by the chirp. biggest thing is don't let the temp thing get to u. my biggest fear was the little dingbats where going to get too hot under the lamp and die. if u have it around 90ish directly under the lamp and some place to get away from the lamp, they will b just fine! make sure food and water is not under the lamp either. they need 3 zones...food/water...heated area...cooler area. Hope that helps! Post some pics of ur babies if u can!

 

[oceanwidedesigns]

Here's some iphone photos of the gals from the first two days -- this weekend I'll make my husband do some better photos with me, it's too hard to photograph them alone!

in the box from the feed store...
http://instagr.am/p/EIjrD/

while getting their brooder cleaned...
http://instagr.am/p/ELQrQ/
http://instagr.am/p/ELQ84/

The australopes are Patty & Selma, the orp is Marge. Marge might be a cockerel I'm afraid :-\\ but we'll see!

 

[earnhardtlvr]

They r soooo cute!

Mine HATE the flash on my phone & camera!

They get all

if I take pics in the evening and the flash goes off!

I had them outside last week and was in the shadow of a tree and the flash went off and my girlie jumped up and pecked the camera!

Silly little fuzz butt! They r really hard to take pics of by themselves! I used to wait til after they ate and would start to get sleepy...and then sneak up on them and start taking pics! Normally they had full bellies and weren't as shy for the camera.