Recent content by Mflood

I have 7, 1-day old chicks (brown laying hens of varying varieties) and one Bantam (not sure what type) chick, who is also a day old. The Bantam chick is very noisy! She is just chirping and chirping and she is keeping the other little chicks awake. What can I do to calm her down? Or is she...

No, it actually is on 24/7. The chickens seem to be doing fine. They sleep at night and are acting normally. They are growing and are laying about 9 eggs a day (we have 14 chickens). I know that it is not traditional, but it is working for us right now.

Thank you for all of the advice. I went with the low wattage bulb, because it does not get nearly as hot. Also, I hung it from a solid rubber coated metal hook that is screwed into the ceiling. It is very sturdy. We used an outdoor extension cord and it is hanging from the ceiling. There is...

I ended up putting a low wattage (125) heat lamp bulb in the coop. We keep it on all the time. We have 14 chickens and have been getting about 9 eggs a day. The chickens seem to be just fine. Hope this helps!

Thanks everyone for the advice. Good ideas. You have given me a lot to think about.

Here are my coop pictures. I will warn you that our coop is pretty shabby looking. We don't have a lot of money (we have 7 kids and we are a one income family), and we needed "emergency" shelter for these chickens. We found 2 packing crates (4'Wx8'Lx2'H) and attached them together, cut out...

Our bulb is 125 watt, so it makes the coop about 20 degrees warmer than the outside, so won't they still have time to grow adequate feathers? They spend most of the day outside and just go in at night, where they huddle and shiver on the roost. That is what made us decide to use the heat...

But I live in Michigan and they might actually have some snow in their coop....

Hi, we just put a heat lamp in our very drafty 4' x 8' chicken coop. We have 14 chickens that are 18 weeks old. The heat lamp that we put in has a 125 watt bulb, instead of the standard 250 watt. We do not have a timer on it or anything fancy. We are expecting a winter with below zero temps...

Thanks. I did put her back into the flock, because she kept trying to escape and seemed very stressed on her own. The flock did not attack, they re-integrated her with no problems! She is having episodes way less frequently. She seems much less stressed! Yay! Now to wean them off of the...

So how long would you keep her separated? I already have her on Prednisone and she has been on vitamins since 1 day old. She can eat and drink by herself.

I have a 5 week old Jersey Giant chick, that began to act weird last week Thursday. I immediately separated her from the other 14 in the flock. Then next day one in the flock was dead. We removed the dead chicken and cleaned everything thoroughly with a disinfectant. New food, water, bedding...

She is puffing out her feathers, chirping a lot and tucking her tail. Poor bird.

I have a 4 week old Jersey Giant chick that is tucking her head under completely. Every once in a while she convulses slightly, so that it looks as though she is pecking at her chest or foot. Her head is actually to the side though, or between her legs. She sometimes has it so far tucked under...

Thanks so much for the quick replies. I know that some of these issues won't come up for a while, but I want to be ready. A couple more details. We ordered all hens, but if we get a roo, I'm a bit worried, because my neighbor really does not want a rooster around. They are loud. We have a...