temperature for baby chicks

[fly lady]

2 ?'s please

i brought 9 day old chicks home today. They are in nice size cardboard box open at the top in a small bathroom.

Is it too hot for the chicks if plenty of room in box to spread out if needed- if a thermometer on floor of box reads 90 degrees. I have a small heater on floor in the room.
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IF use a heat lamp on clamp above the chicks what should the room temp be.

 

[goldies99]

90º for the fisrt week and then drop 5º each week....if they are too hot they will be trying to stick to the out sides of the box to keep away from the heat.....you should be able to tell if they look faint......just dont let the box catch on fire...make sure they have water....if they are too cold the will not stop peeping.........good luck

 

[crazychickenwom]

If the box is already reading 90 I would not use a heat lamp... If you can get the room down to about 70 and then use a heat lamp for 90 in just one small area of the box that would probably be better, that way the chicks can cool down. Think about chicks under a hen, they come and go as needed to warm up and then go back out from under her to look around and play. If you keep them too warm several health problems can occur.

Remember to watch your chicks and see how they are acting, if they are huddled under the lamp on top of each other they are too cold, if they are all as far away from the light as possible panting they are too hot. There are no exact ways to keeping chicks warm, the recommendation to start them @ 95 and move down by 5 degrees each week is just an estimate. Each set of chicks is different.

Good luck with your babies!

 

[bairo]

If the box is already reading 90 I would not use a heat lamp... If you can get the room down to about 70 and then use a heat lamp for 90 in just one small area of the box that would probably be better, that way the chicks can cool down. Think about chicks under a hen, they come and go as needed to warm up and then go back out from under her to look around and play. If you keep them too warm several health problems can occur.

Remember to watch your chicks and see how they are acting, if they are huddled under the lamp on top of each other they are too cold, if they are all as far away from the light as possible panting they are too hot. There are no exact ways to keeping chicks warm, the recommendation to start them @ 95 and move down by 5 degrees each week is just an estimate. Each set of chicks is different.

Good luck with your babies!

A BIG X2
Even the first week of life when we try and provide that 90-95 degrees for them, they still need to come and go just a bit from the heat. As above, a large enough box where a heat lamp only shines on half of it is probably a bit better...but what you have will work for a while as long as you keep a very close eye on the way the chicks are acting. I would first pull the heater back some and get the box down to 85 and start dropping it 5 degrees for every 7 days from today. Keep and eye on them is really the best advice. I edited because I just realized they were 9 days old

 

[A.T. Hagan]

When using radiant heat sources such as lamps it can be hard to measure the actual temperature felt by the chicks. You're much better off going by their behavior than a thermometer. The chicks will tell you if they're too hot or cold.

This is what you should be looking for:

 

[crazychickenwom]