Author: Marcia

This post will tell about a hard left turn that I took this week in my chicken keeping practices. Let me start by quoting three wise sayings:

1. Anonymous Proverb: “You learn something new every day.”
2. King Solomon famously wrote, “There’s nothing new under the sun.”
3. The Apostle Paul wrote, “I will show you a more excellent way.”

This post will offer echos of all of these.

You Learn Something New… If You’re Willing to Learn

I love learning new things about keeping chickens, even though I’m four years young in the hobby. To this end, I’m an avid researcher. One of the best resources for me (especially since I lack a mentor in real life and live on an isolated mountain farm in WV) is the community called Backyard Chickens. There is a wealth of experience and a wonderful supportive, welcoming atmosphere on the forums at backyardchickens.com. When I first started keeping chickens, it was my daily (often hourly) go-to spot; nowadays, I often go there for recreation or just to surf and learn.

So, after I discovered and built my first Hover Brooder, I was excited to share about it with that community and added a post to an existing thread about brooders. In response, a wonderful, experienced, and kind chicken keeper, named Diane, commented on my post. She supported the Hover Brooder I had built, but also related that it was possible to raise chickens outdoors without heat lamps and in a way far more natural to the rhythms of life and growth of young chicks that God originally ordained.

I am so glad that I had the humility to explore her method, even though I was at the time so excited about my own.

There’s Nothing New… Or Is There?

It’s new to me, but the method that Diane introduced mimics the way that God created the brooding process for chicks. (Diane will be the first to share that it’s not her method; her post about this method was the one that caught a lot of eyes, has remained active over years, and still has her present on it to answer questions—again and again!) This widely known, modern adaptation to natural brooding is generally known as the Mama Heating Pad (MHP) method.

In the wild, mama chickens set on their eggs (brood them) for 21 days. When new chicks emerge from their eggs, weak and wet, they rest and then dry, and then gain strength, all under the hen’s body and soft downy feathers that warm them from above. Very soon, they peek out from under their mama, and then as she rises to eat, drink, and scavage and scratch for food, they follow and mimic her. If they get chilled, they run back under mama’s fluff to warm up, then reemerge. After about four weeks, they are fully feathered, and too large to fit under mama. They then huddle next to each other and mama as they leave her side more and more.

In a nutshell, with the MHP method a heating pad is placed low to the floor of a brooder pen, over shavings or straw: your choice. The pad is supported by a simple wire frame made of garden fencing (or some use more elaborate supports, like old cookie cooling racks), and covered by an old towel, which is then covered in Press N Seal, for help with keeping it clean.

The theory of this arrangement is that the chicks run under the heating pad and warm their backs via direct contact with it. (The heating pad must NOT have an auto-off feature, or MUST have the ability to DISABLE that auto-off feature).

Once under “mama,” new chicks may sleep under “her” as well. After being sufficiently warmed by “mama,” they often emerge to eat, drink, and/or explore their surroundings. As soon as they are chilled, they scurry back under “mama” for another warm up. When ambient temperatures are warm enough, they will also doze on “mama’s” back!

As night approaches, and light dwindles, the chicks naturally fill up their crops and bed down under “mama.” Chickens, like most birds, do not eat, drink, or move around at night. They eat and drink heavily before dark, and then roost for the night. Broody hens will collect their chicks under themselves, settle down, and sleep. So will their chicks—warm under her feathers. The MHP simulates all of this: and you have blessed quiet and dark all night long in the brooder.

And, because the MHP does not work by heating ambient airs… either under the MHP or outside of it… but by direct contact with chicks’ backs, this brooder can be used effectively in sub-freezing barn environments, even as mama chickens can brood their young in such environments.

So, while this is a new-to-me method, and is using modern electricity, it is also an old, old approach to brooding baby chicks: about as close as you can get to simulating a true mama chicken without having a broody hen.

A More Excellent Way!

How is this more excellent? Glad you asked!

Let me count the ways!

1. There is no danger of fire from heat lamps, which has always been a concern to those who use them.
2. There are no accidental burns from heat lamps, which is great especially when grandchildren are helping with (and/or enjoying) newly hatched chicks.
3. The MHP method supports the establishment of night/day cycle in chicks which is the most natural to them.
4. Chicks choose their degree of warmth and/or activity freely.
5. You can brood in unheated spaces: garages, barns, etc. (They still need protection from predators and drafts.)
6. It uses less electricity to heat a pad than two heat lamps (for redundancy). This fact also reduces the danger of overloading the circuit, causing a breaker to trip in the night and losing all heat (which has happened to us).
7. Chicks learn natural day/night cycles; they are not unduly stressed by constant bright light. This has to be as good for them as it is for us: deep night sleeps and active days with eating/drinking has to equal happier, healthier, better adjusted chicks, at least to my way of thinking.
8. We go through less feed/water as a result of their sleeping soundly all night.
9. Chicks may feather faster. (I have yet to experience this one for myself.)

Let Me Show You This More Excellent Way!

In case you’d like to follow in my footsteps, first let me link you to the original (loooong) thread that I consulted on Backyard Chicken forums.

You’ll find pictures and information galore there, but if you want a summary, here it is:

1. The original idea is that you take garden wire (2×4” welded wire is probably best, since it’s more rigid than poultry netting, and yet open enough to allow chicks to get maximum contact with the heating pad) and bend it into a shallow arc, forming a cave of sorts. (Some newer adaptations use a cookie cooling sheet for support, and may use more rigid sides. I did this latter modification with my second MHP; see below.) Again, you want to make sure that the structure slopes upwards from back to front such that the ceiling in the back will be about 2.5” above the shavings (for day-old peeps).

2. 

   Over this wire frame, we then put a naked heating pad. Most such have writing on one side, indicating the side you’re to put next to the human body. Put this side down, towards the chicks. Make sure to buy one that does NOT have an auto-off feature, or has the ability to turn off this feature. You don’t want the pad kicking off automatically—ever! (They can be hard to find. Here’s a large model that’s sold on Amazon and at WalMart (and in the picture above, showing what you’ll need). Currently, they sell for around $20 w/free shipping on Amazon. It has NO auto-off feature. I set mine on medium, no matter the ambient air, for day-old to week-old chicks.)

3. 

   Over the pad, drape a hand towel, large enough to lap over the front and back.

4. Affix some Press ‘N Seal wrap to the top of the towel (wrapping the sides) as a poop deflector. (After each use of the MHP, you can either wipe this surface, or remove it and redo it to clean up.)
5. Put the MHP assembly over shavings or straw. It should be that it slopes front to back: make it 2.5” above the flooring in the back, and about 4” above on the front, with the towel falling over the front about 2” as an “awning.”
6. Cover the sides and back, if desired, with shavings/straw. (Some leave the back open for egress; some close it with a towel and then back that with deep shavings. This latter was my approach. It depends somewhat on ambient air temps and also on how large the hatch is. What you want to avoid is chicks getting trapped inside. My pads are 12” x 24”, and my hatch was 10 chicks: plenty of room for everyone to come and go freely.)

7. 

   Cover the top of the MHP with shavings/straw. The chicks will hang out there when the ambient temps are warm, and snuggle/snooze in the warmth of the top of the MHP.

8. Over time, as chicks grow (and they grow fast) you’ll want to raise the MHP and lower the heat setting on your heating pad. You can raise it by simply putting lumber, stones, bricks, or whatever under the sides of the MHP.

Details About My MHP for Outdoor Brooding:

I ended up with kind of a hybrid between the original design (just bent wire) and those with rigid frames. We cut a 2” x 8” board diagonally such that each piece was 2.5” at the back and 4” at the front, and 12” long. We put a 23” 2×4 at the back, and screwed the side pieces to it. Then, we attached garden wire to the top, with the pad on top of that.

The 2×4 back was higher than the low ends of the sides, making a lip of sorts, such that the pad cannot slip backwards.

The wire was stapled to the flat tops of the two sides.

Then, I put a towel over the pad, and affixed the Press N Seal to it, and filled in with shavings below, as well as an insulative board, since this pen is off the floor in an unheated barn. The towel was arranged with a generous “awning” in the front, again, to keep heat in and cold air out, and we added plenty of wood shavings under and on top.

Transferring My 5-Day Old Chicks to Outdoor Conditions

We already had heat lamps installed above the pen, So I warmed up the ambient air with one heat lamp over their food/water, and left it on until 8:30 PM that night. (It’s on a timer: it will be their “sun,”going on each day at 6:30 AM, about an hour before sunrise here.

When I transferred them, I was taking them from ambient 70° airs in the house to ambient 48° in the barn at noon on a sunny March day. The solo heat lamp was my way of making MYSELF feel better… 🙂 Because I incubate hatches every week, I have a series of grow out pens for brooding. And because it’s raised, I also put wooden fence board under the MHP for added floor insulation.

I brought the chicks out, starting at noon, and made excuses for sticking around the barn working with adult pens all afternoon, preparing for an expected snowfall and making improvements on my Family Coops. The chicks did great. They went in and out of their MHP cave, ate and drank, and took naps just as they had in the house.

In the morning, at 9 AM, the heat lamp had gone back on and the water was liquid. Two chicks were out eating and drinking, and eight more were cozy under their MHP, hanging out.

Conclusions

For me, there is no way I’m going back to heat lamps, in any form, including the hover brooder I was so proud of last week. 🤗 The only reason I would is if I had too many chicks/hatch to fit under MHPs… and I don’t foresee that in our operation. However, for those who might have that issue, I’m leaving up my post about the Hover Brooder. After all, no one method works for all chicken keepers!

 

UPDATE: 5 days later…

Chicks are all happy, healthy, and growing! They have been living in our unheated barn while we received 16” of snow, and have had most nights in the low 20°s. Last night was 16°! Chicks were all doing fine this morning.

 

As the fall weather has become colder, we have been modifying our Family Coops to make sure that our birds stay warm in the winter.

Our first step was to open up the tarps that protect their interiors and quickly staple in some landscaping cloth to cover the wire floor. Over this we spread about 3” of pine shavings.

Later, we mulched and added fall leaves to this bedding. (You can read details about this nifty trick in this post.) About every month, we add bedding to the coops. Up until Christmas, they have remained clean and sweet smelling!

The birds were doing fine at night while temperatures remained in the 20’s, but as they began to regularly dip into the teens and below, we added simple covers to the feeding stations at the back of the coop, and a skirt to some that are most often hit by strong winds. These covers prevent cold air from blowing into the coops.

The flaps over the feeding station, in particuar, also seem to keep their water from freezing quite so fast, and keep hungry wild birds — around here, jays and crows — out of the feed, as these became more of a pest as winter came on.

As the days got darker, we also added light to the coops in order to encourage young pullets to lay reliably. Since it was the season, and we had extras, we ended up using Christmas lights. A $10 set (purchased at our local Family Dollar store) was 14’ of lighted length, and proved to be the perfect size to festoon the clear panels on our coops. We linked them with outdoor extension cords, and have them all on one timer. They light up in the early AM and evening so that the birds have 15 hours of light per day.

Then we had our first snowfall: about 3”. The birds did fine, though they did tend to huddle either inside their coops or at the very end of the runs. 🤔 Most of the day, this scene has remained fairly static.

As the winter progressed, the only trouble we had was with the bedding. On those inevitable long weeks where birds spent much more time in their coops because of freezing or blowing or snowing weather, the bedding did cake up because the landscape cloth made it very hard to stir it properly (as you should always do with deep litter).

We ended up cutting three 4’ x 2’ pieces of 1/2” plywood and lining the bottom of the coops on a warm day in January. We pulled out the caked bedding and landscape cloth, put down compressed wood pellets (like they use in pellet stoves) and shavings on top of the new wood floor panels.

Since then, adding shavings and stirring the bedding is much easier, and we’ll be able to remove the boards come late spring, store them, and reuse them winter after winter.

Our final improvement came in late March, and we plan to add this one to our published plans. We added door flaps in place of the hardware cloth ones. These are hinged to the bottoms of the nesting boxes, and hooked on the bottom so that they stay closed, as well as hooking to an eye-screw to stay open for feeding/watering.

The reason we decided to make this permanent amendment to the design is that there’s always a concern with rodents and with wild birds getting at the chicken feed (the latter spread avian diseases). Furthermore, for the coops where water stations face east, we fought algae in our bowls a lot. This modification helps fight algae and wild birds, while adding yet another layer of protection for the birds from cold or predators. And it only took about an hour to add one to each of our coops!

We have been happily building our cute little family coops all summer. How I have loved to watch each one be completed and established around our former garden’s perimeter. I’ve been loving the look, the ease of tending, and the happiness of my birds.

Until last week, that is, when I had a vivid dream — a nightmare, actually.

I dreamed that a black bear came out of the nearby woods (where we know for certain that they do live) and exerted her awesome strength to claw open my tarped coops and ravage my chickens. In my dream, the coops lay scattered on the lawn, overturned and broken. Chicken feathers were everywhere. Some chickens escaped into nearby woods; others were bloody casualties scattered on the lawn. It was horrendous; I could not return to sleep for hours.

In the clear light of day the next morning, my husband and I discussed the dream, and its implications. We are serious about finding the best possible breeding stock and doing highly selective breeding. We are investing time, love, and dollars into this endeavor. Whether now — when investments are relatively modest — or in the future — when years of effort have produced very expensive, high quality birds — we do not want to lose out to a wandering black bear in search of a meal.

So, we read up on this topic. We learned that black bears do indeed attack chicken coops, and with devastating results. However, bears will respect electric fences (yay!). One sets hot lines at about 24″ above ground (as well as higher or lower). The best scheme involves multiple strands, since bear paws are well insulated. We also read that it’s a good idea to slather the line with honey, so that a wandering bear will lick the line. Apparently, once a bear has registered the shock, they typically won’t try again.

Our problem then became how to electrify our perimeter. We had placed the family coops outside the garden fence, with runs extending inward. There was no good way to place electric fence around these coops and still maintain 1) the ability to mow easily, 2) create a pleasing look, or 3) create an easily-operated gate.

With a groan, we came to the conclusion that we needed to rotate our scheme 180 degrees. Our plan is to have 12 family coops in all, housing 4 breeds, divided into three families each. We had built and mounted five of these so far. We would now move all five of these family coops to the interior of the garden, mounting them back-to-back down the center, and have the runs extend outward, towards the perimeter. Then, we would electrify that perimeter.

We were grateful that the coops had been designed to be mobile, but they are still heavy. When we finish each one, it takes a minimum of two strong people to move it (using a heavy-duty wagon) to the garden area from the garage workshop. In this case, it meant disassembling the coop’s supportive legs (which had been well pounded into the ground), removing the wire that allows chickens to go under the coop), moving each coop up, around, and down over stepped garden terraces, re-pounding in supportive legs, re-leveling the coops, and finally, reworking the runs (which involved repairing openings in the garden fence perimeter and making new openings near the coop doors) and finally, rewiring the underside of each coop. We also had to reverse the tarps, since we want south-facing sun to pour into those clear vinyl panels that we incorporated. Whew!

I was no help in the heavy lifting part of the endeavor. I’m not strong, and had recently injured my back. But, in God’s special providence, my strong and willing son called a couple of days after my nightmare (and our decision to move the coops) to announce his decision to visit us with his family.

With his help, we moved the coops in two days, but it’s going to take at least a week to accomplish all of the above-listed tasks, and still longer to electrify the garden. In the picture at the right, you can see the coops moved, and the patches that were under three of the coops when they were outside of the garden fence. Chickens sure can eat green stuff down to nothing in a short amount of time. In hot weather, they love hanging out under these coops: shade and breezes! You can also see the progression of eaten-down vegetation in the runs (that have been created as each coop was erected). The lowest coop (far left in the picture) is the most recent. The only reason that there wasn’t a bare patch for the far right one is that we never cut a door for those birds to go under that coop.

As all five coops are moved now, a hidden blessing has emerged: they are even easier to tend! Before, when the plan was to line opposite sides of the 1800 sq. ft. garden with six coops each, I would go down one side, tending six coops, then truck across to the other side, and then go down it, tending the other six coops. Now, instead of my needing to go down each outside wall of our garden, the new placement will put them back-to-back in the center of the garden. Thus, I will walk down the center aisle of 12 coops in order to tend them daily: six on my left and six on my right. This will be especially welcome in winter, as I water and feed with snow on the ground. So far, as you can see, five coops are in place that will be on my left as I walk down the row.

So, even though the electric fence isn’t up yet, we sleep better at nights now, and are grateful for the added benefits of easier tending of our little flock! 🐔