We had a wonderful blessing on Saturday, June 8. Twins—a doeling and a buckling—were delivered safely to our doe named Milky Way, or Milcah to us in the barn. It was Milcah’s “first freshening” — meaning that she was a first time mom, and a young, small one at that. So, we were praying for twins, since each of them would be smaller than a single kid, especially a buckling.
All went well for this birth, and we were thrilled. Milcah was, at first, a bit clueless, but after a few hours became strongly bonded to her twins, and was everything we could wish for in a mother. After two days of “bonding” (read, being cooped up) with her twins, though, Milcah was braying to be out with the herd and eating grass! So, I began to keep time for her. I would see her nurse her twins, let her out, and then call her in to nurse again after two hours.
This went well for another two days, until the twins stopped sleeping after feeding and wanted to play outside. Cautiously, I let them meet the rest of the herd. All the does were very kind to the new kids, and I felt comfortable letting them into the three-acre field that is the most visible from our house of all our fields. Again, this worked well for a day, so I got comfortable with it.
Mid-day, I decided to take a quick trip into town with my daughter to run an important errand. We were gone about an hour and a half, but on the way home, the heavens opened and it started to pour rain. I was figuring that Milcah would have gotten her kids safely in, but knowing that she’s a first time mom, it crossed my mind to be sure to check first thing when I got home. So, I went right to the barn in the tapering rain, and looked.
They were not in their kid hut. They were not anywhere in the barn, but there was Milcah—alone. My heart sank. “Milcah!” I demanded, “Where are your kids!!?” She just looked at me.
So, into the rain I went. The field is about three acres… and then there’s a gate that opens onto a smaller field, about one and a half acres. I didn’t think they’d gone into the farther field, but there was that chance. I started going around the edges, and especially into the woods, where the herd often chooses to graze. The grass is tall in places, and there are brambles and there are sparse woods. My jeans got soaked by the tall grass and wet rose bushes as I searched. After about ten minutes, I called in reinforcements. My adult daughter, Marjorie, came out to search with me.
As we looked, the sky cleared, and the sun shone for about ten minutes. Then it darkened again, and rained gently. I was thinking about the little tiny kids being wet and cold… there was a decent breeze along with the rain and sunshine. 😕 They were SO small~ I knew they would be so easy to miss. I prayed that God would open our eyes as we searched!
After we had searched separately for about ten more minutes wandering wherever we went in the field, I called to Marjorie, and we began a systematic sweep, as you would if you were mowing. We started around the perimeter, near the fence line, going side by side, about ten feet apart. We got up into the woods at the crown of the field and slowed and searched. Marjorie started to call, imitating Milcah’s timbre.
Then, to our relief, we heard them! A small, high-pitched bleating came from nearby, but we couldn’t see them. Then Marjorie heard it again. Then she saw them. They were warm, dry, and sleepy, just emerging from a hollow tree that had fallen down long ago. With great rejoicing and many grateful thanks to a good God, we took them up and brought them back to Milcah in the barn. Believe me, we’ve been keeping close tabs on them ever since!
We are new to goats in 2019, and whenever I (Marcia) am new to anything, my first step is to research a topic up, down, and sideways. In researching the best way to build a manger, I ran across several references to Harvey Considine, and his book that detailed a hay-conserving manger design. Sounded good to me! So, I looked it up online, watched YouTube movies of contented goats eating peacefully from them, and set out to build one.
The idea with this design is that the slats are far enough apart to enable the goat to step onto the step and reach her head into the manger and pick her favorite portions, letting the extra fall back into the manger instead of onto the floor, as with many other designs, where the goats pull out more than they can chew and thus waste hay falls to the floor.
This is what mine looked like when I got done… sort of.
I say “sort of” because before that goat on the step on the left got here, it worked great. The goat on the right, a pregnant 3rd freshener (Buttercup) used it exactly as designed. She stepped up, put her head through the slats, and munched away. However, when the little, younger, slimmer, and more flighty goat (Milcah) arrived, she literally went through the slats and into the manger, then jumped out of it in her panic. It was amazing!
So, the picture above is actually the second revision that we made to this manger. First revision after Milcah came was to put 4” square wire on behind the slats. But that defeated the whole purpose of the design, and because the box was deep, and the front slats were not slanted back, the does could not reach much of the hay. SIGH!
So, we revised again, putting two boards horizontally behind the grill, as you see in that picture (if you look hard). That worked really well, until Rigel came. 🙄 Rigel was 9 weeks old, a handsome herdsire-to-be, and he immediately went through even this space and into the manger to hide from the older does. SIGH!
So, we took the manger out of the stall and tried other methods… a square wire basket of 2” X 4” openings mounted on the wall (same issue with not being able to truly browse the hay, so not eating it) and putting it on the floor in low feed tubs. Rigel loved that one. He could sleep in it! 😖
Rigel wasn’t the only one! By now, my Buttercup had given birth to three bouncing baby doelings, and once they were up on their feet, they were even more likely to get inside of our original (twice modified) hay manger.
So, I went back online to my goat community and asked for help. From the replies to my post, I gained the inspiration to rework my manger with smaller slats spaced with 3” openings (too small for these little kids’ heads) and slanted from lower (back) to upper (forward) so that the hay would fall into the resulting tray.
Here then is our fourth revision (and we hope our final one, but stay tuned!).
If you have any animals in your barn, you know the feeling of wondering if everything’s okay, and yet not wanting to suit up to go check. We’ve all been there! If you breed animals, it gets worse around birthing time. And that’s just the middle of the night. Anxiety can escalate when “life” takes us away from our barns for hours or a day and we have animals due to give birth.
The Problem
I am a new goatherd, and my barn is 250 feet uphill from my house. In this photo, the red dot on the building at the top is my bedroom (under a metal roof) in my farmhouse. At the bottom of the picture is my barn, and the red dot is our kidding stall.
It’s cold on a mountain farm in early spring, when the kids usually come. Plus, I have real trouble getting back to sleep once I’ve suited up and checked the barn. When kids are due, I’ll want to check that bard 2 to 3 times between dusk and dawn, and then also during the day.
How I WISHED we could get WiFi to the barn… or maybe a baby monitor… or, well, ANYthing that would give me some peace of mind with kids coming soon.
My husband is tech savvy, but not particularly handy. We also didn’t have a lot of money to devote to this project. And, given the distance, metal roofs, and the fact that we don’t even have cell phone coverage here, I felt really dismayed. What if I would have problems with a doe kidding? I couldn’t even call anyone from the barn and have them talk me through it! 😬 The prospect really scared me.
So, feeling that I couldn’t be alone in this quandary, I made a post on the Mini Nubian Goat Breeders’ FB group. A wonderful man named CJ answered me and gave us the specs for the system we have now detailed below. I can now see and hear my barn through two cameras at any time of the day from anywhere where there’s WiFi. I couldn’t be more thrilled, and I’m delighted to share the details with you!
The Solution
NOTE: NONE of the links below are affiliate. We’re not making anything on these links.
THREE KEY COMPONENTS: We ordered three items from Amazon. They were:
Amcrest ProHD 1080P WiFi Camera 2MP Camera. This camera will pan 360°, tilt 90°, allows for 2-way audio, and allows digital zoom 4X. So, I can see and hear everything going on in my barn. The night vision is super sharp!
Note that there are other camera options that are sealed; in a dusty barn, this camera may have a shorter battery life. Price at this writing: about $60, with free shipping from Amazong Prime.
Ubiquiti Nanostation Bridge. Think of this as an invisible cable that carries the WiFi signal from point to point. These have to basically be placed in a line of sight from eachother, but their published reach is 5 kilometers! Our 250 ft. distance was a piece of cake. These were $127.
WiFi Access Point. This is the device that plugs into the bridge and then provides WiFi for the entire barn area. (If you don’t already have WiFi in your house, get two of these.)
In our case one of these broadcasts a great signal for several acres, which means I now have cell phone over WiFi, and can talk to goat mentors if I get into birthing difficulties! This was $82.
ETHERNET CABLES: Each of the items above came with a single, short Ethernet cable. It turned out that one can need two cables per item. We had several short Ethernet cables lying around the house, and wound up using four of them. If you need to run cable through your house, you will have all the materials you need to make your own patch cable. If you don’t, you can buy patch cables here. They cost about $2 each and you can get them in bundles of five.
These purchases were all we needed for the digital connection from house to barn. But we had to do a little bit of wiring because our WiFi is on the wrong side of the house for a connection with the bridge. For that, I had to buy 100’ Ethernet cable and two special tools: a data tester and a cable crimper.
Step by Step:
Here are the steps to complete the digital connection, without the details for running cables from one side of the house to the other, which involves holes in walls and crawling around in the attic. 🥺
Open the WiFi extender, also known as an “access point.” It looks like a smoke detector. If you have WiFi in your house, plug it into your WiFi router, using the “power over Ethernet” powerpack. Plug a computer into the WiFi router, using a patch cable. The included directions will tell you how to configure the WiFi extender. If you don’t have WiFi but do have Internet, you will need to watch this YouTube video to see how to use it to provide WiFi in your home.
Unplug the WiFi extender from the WiFi. We won’t need it again until we set it up in the barn.
Open the camera package. Follow directions and plug it in. Follow more directions and download an app to your phone or tablet. Follow more directions to activate the camera. Make sure that you associate the camera with the WiFi you plan to use on a regular basis (we have more than one WiFi connection at our farm, so the camera is on the one Marcia routinely uses).
Open the Bridge package. There are two identical devices. One will be set up as an “access point” at the house; the other will be a “station” at the barn. They both are designed to be zip tied to a vertical pipe. We used 1.5” PVC to mount it—see picture below.
Plug one of these two identical devices into the house WiFi router, and follow directions to set it up as an access point. Give it a unique IP address (I used 192.168.1.21, and suggest you do the same). I marked this number inside the plastic housing with a Sharpie so I could tell them apart later.
Unplug that and plug in the second device. It wants to be set up as a “station.” I used IP address 192.168. 1.22 and marked it on the inside of the removeable plastic housing that encloses the connection points.
Plug the “access point” (device 192.168.1.21) into your WiFi router with a cable and point it at the barn.
Take the “station” (device 192.168.1.22) to the barn and point it at the house. Plug it in!
Plug the WiFi extender into the “station” at the barn.
If everything went right, you should now have WiFi at your barn. (If it didn’t, leave a comment below and we’ll try to help if we can.)
Plug the camera in at the barn. It should work.
Here are pictures of the installed hardware:
This is the “bridge” unit, installed under the eaves of the farmhouse. The cable goes up through the soffit, across the attic to the other side of the house, and down through the wall to where our WiFi router lives.
The other end of the bridge is in a nook of our barn. The WiFi Extender is on a shelf.
This is the WiFi Extender. I have the hardware to attach it to the ceiling some other day.
Post Script
We just had our first kidding at Storybook Farm: God blessed us with three beautiful doelings. The feature picture above is during their first night. I was SO glad to be able to peek at them as I awakened in the night to see how they were doing! Barn cams rule!
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Got my Leahy 415 redwood incubator up and running this winter, and a week ago we set our first hatch! This one is really a trial balloon since it’s a new incubator and the girls aren’t laying strongly currently. The weather has been brutal, and the nights are still long, so I don’t blame them! So, I’ve had my first hatch in for the week, and just added my second tray last night.
This Leahy is a manual turn incubator, so I have to turn the eggs three times a day, which is easy for me since I’m home and always check my incubators a couple of times a day and right before bed to make sure that temps and humidity are within parameters. However, the turning system of yore involved egg positioners that were for standard sized eggs back in the 1950s, and with us hatching a variety of heritage breeds, they didn’t work.
While I don’t mind manual turning, moving each egg by hand three times daily gets old fast, so I looked around and found a great inspirational video below:
The video on the left shows the version I came up with (if you can see the video preview, just click the triangle and it’ll come up).
We used PVC pipe and fiberglass rods that are made to hold up electric field fencing. It took us awhile to make the prototype (a few hours) because of gathering tools and sizing the spaces between the rods for our specific eggs, but it eventually worked! Last night, we whipped up a second one in under an hour in order to set Hatch #2.
Each day — morning, midday, and before I go up for bed — I pull or push each rack, check the hygrometer, fill the water pan if it’s needed, and close the box. Takes seconds/turn!
Tonight I’m candling Hatch #1! It will be interesting to see how fertility and air sacs are coming along.
Many people raise chickens to enjoy healthy eggs. I know that’s what got us started. And even more fun is to have a colorful egg basket—without dying!
Many first-time chicken keepers are unaware that different breeds of chickens lay different colored eggs. Without any dyeing, you can have a colorful Easter basket year round! Our grandchildren love to identify the breeds that their breakfast eggs came from by the colors.
At Storybook Farm, we work hard on mating our heritage breed cocks and hens to produce birds better than they are, following the APA Standard of Perfection (SOP). But, there’s a time to get less serious and just have fun! We happen to have heritage breeds that lay bluish eggs, dark chocolate eggs, and deep tan eggs. From these breeds, one can cross them to get a hen that will lay what are commonly called “Easter eggs” and “olive eggs.” The cross-bred hens are correspondingly called “Easter Eggers” and “Olive Eggers.” The reason that breeding these birds is “not serious” is because Easter Eggers (EEs) and Olive Eggers (OEs) are not recognized as breeds by the APA. But, it sure is fun to have those different colored eggs in your basket each week!
So, what breeds do you combine to get Easter and olive egg colors? For OEs, you need a breed that gives dark brown eggs: Marans and Welsummers are popular choices for this element. And you need a breed that lays a blue, or blue green egg: most often, and Ameraucana. For EEs, you want to start with a tan egg (many breeds lay this kind), and cross it with a blue or blue green egg. The resulting color will be more of a true green than an olive color.
It does not matter if the cock or the hen are of the two breeds you are mixing. You can put an Ameraucana cock over a Marans hen, or vice versa. The resulting hens from these interbreeding can be quite lovely. They almost always have cute muffs around their faces (from their Ameraucana genes) and their feather colors can be all over the place. And, you can develop egg colors still further by breeding successive generations of mixed breeds. The chart at the left gives you ideas of how they can develop, as does the photo below.
Here at Storybook Farm, we have Black Copper Marans (who lay dark brown eggs), Ameraucanas (who lay the blue eggs), and Light Sussex, who lay differing tan colored eggs. (See a sample of our eggs in the photo at the start of this article.)
If you are interested in purchasing either hatching eggs or chicks, we can accommodate you with a special order. Please see our Shop for details on orders of this kind.
We have enjoyed breeding Black Copper Marans for years. We love their large, dark, almost chocolate colored eggs. We love their docile temperaments. But, we’ve been having trouble raising show-worthy cockerels. These are not supposed to have white underfluff, but ours somehow always do! So, this year, we decided we’d take a break from Black Coppers and try to raise Wheaten Marans. They have the same dark eggs and delightful temperaments, but white underfluff is no problem for them! I’ve been looking around for a source for show quality Wheaten Marans, and found a good one in Marans Unlimited, in Tx. That’s a long drive for me from WV, but luckily Bev and Sandy (the sister team who breeds these award-winning Wheaten Marans) agreed to bring some hatching eggs to a chicken show that we were both attending.
Did you know that they have chicken shows? They sure do, all over the country. Chicken fanciers bathe and condition their chickens for the shows, and when they get to the show, they spray and wipe their feathers with a silk scarf, and moisten their feet and combs with Vaseline. It’s pretty amazing to wander through a huge room full of varied and beautiful fowl of various sizes, shapes, and colors. (There’s a great documentary about the process of breeding and showing chickens entitled “Chicken People.” Find it and watch it if I’ve peaked your interest! It’s fascinating.)
Scott and I at the Dixie Classic in Knoxville, TN
This year, I went with my husband to the Dixie Classic, which is a major chicken show given annually each first weekend of December. The first of December happens to be our wedding anniversary: this year, number 39! I had been more sure than ever that I’d been blessed with the husband of my dreams when Scott agreed to take me to the Dixie Classic for our anniversary last year. We had a great time, and so decided to return this year. Not only did Scott take me to Knoxville for the weekend, but he even wore a matching chicken shirt to the show. What a guy!
We were to meet Bev and Sandy at Knoxville and get the precious Wheaten Marans eggs that they had promised to bring. We did indeed meet them there, and get the eggs, but God had a beautiful gift waiting for me at Knoxville. I also came home with a beautiful pair of young adult Wheaten Marans! We called the pullet “Anni” and the cockerel “Vern.” (Annivernsary, get it? 😉)
It all started when I saw Annie. She struck me as SO beautiful: balanced, with a wide tail spread (something that I’ve been working hard at in my lines) and clean, lovely plumage. She was also a Blue Wheaten, which is among my favorite color patterns. I found out who had brought her and said to her, “I want your pullet!!” Then, I quickly amended according to my original intent, “I mean, I want eggs from your pullet this spring!” She smiled sweetly and said, “I’ll let you have her!”
I was dumbfounded! After a few minutes more conversation, when she found I had no cockerel of age to breed to her, she decided to let me have the male that she had brought to sell, too. As you see in the picture above, they are a lovely pair.
Annie and Me
And as you can see in the picture to the right, I am one happy gal to have been so blessed on my anniversary! Bev and Sandy were not sure the the fertility of the eggs they brought, since it’s the dead of winter and their birds aren’t laying well, so they gave me the eggs and they are now in the incubator. If all goes well, we’ll have Wheaten and Black Copper chicks hatching on Christmas Day. I’m grateful to be in the Marans Chicken Club of the USA, where I’ve found mentors and friends who are helping me to succeed with breeding quality chickens!
Today is a slushy, cold, wet day in the mountains of West Virginia! It’s a day where we’ve seen rain, sleet, and mushy snow falling, as well as a weak sunshine hours ago. I think they call it “winter mix.” It’s a great day to sit inside and write a blog post about chickens!
As unwelcoming as the weather was this morning, Scott went out (faithful man that he is) to feed and water and found our first Ameraucana eggs! We’ve been raising these girls since March of 2017, and hadn’t seen a single egg yet. Part of that was that the days got short just as they should have come into lay, and none of our 25 laying hens was giving us a single egg. It’s healthy for the mature hens to get a laying break right after they molt, but the pullets didn’t really need one.
Two weeks ago, we put on lights, and the eggs have been coming back slowly. Interestingly, first it was a mix of mature and pullet Light Sussex eggs, in various shades of pink and tan. Then came the Black Copper Marans’ dark chocolate eggs—pullet size only. And now, we see the first Ameraucana eggs—blue green and quite large for pullet eggs, which leads me to suspect that they either did, or could have, laid earlier in the year if the lights had been right.
We do so love having a colorful mix of eggs in our basket. We love also the insides: free ranging layers lead to dark orange yolks and freshness unparalleled by what we can buy in the store. (I know, because we’ve been buying eggs through the fall before we turned on the lights.)
All this year, I’ve been growing out my new Ameraucana breeding stock, and they have turned out so nice! I am beyond thrilled!
Splash Pullet
In case you’re unfamiliar, the Ameraucana is a relatively new breed of chicken, having only been accepted by the American Poultry Association in 1984. They have quickly gained popularity, however, and are bred in a number of color varieties. We breed blacks, blues (which are both APA approved) and also splash. This last variety is a fun change from the more run-of-the-mill color schemes among chickens (see a picture of one of our splash pullets, right). Our original stock came from the show-stopper lines of Paul and Angela Smith in Texas.
Here at Storybook Farm, we raise four breeds of Large Fowl. By far, our favorites for personality, egg color, and overall cuteness are the Ameraucanas! They are not large birds as compared to our Light Sussex and Marans, but they are quick, bright, and funny. I love their feathery muffs that half hide their faces, while their expressive eyes peek out at you and twinkle merrily. Ours are curious, but shy. I have known people to make real pets of them, however, with a little effort–and a fair number of treats!
Three Beautiful Boys: Black, Splash, Blue
Ameraucanas are layers of large, blue eggs–the color of robin’s eggs! Their feather colors are beautiful: the blacks have a deep green sheen. The blues have delicate lacing on their feathers. The splash are a funky mixture of black and white. If it’s a fun factor you’re after, you’ve come to the right place with Ameraucanas!
We managed to raise three beautiful boys this year. Our black cock, especially, is large and lovely, but the other two are great as well. Because we have one of each, we can mix and match with our four blue hens and two splash hens to get all three color combinations. In case you’ve never learned this before, the “blue” gene is actually acting to dilute black coloration in feathers are achieved by breeding differing colors together. Chicks inherit one of a pair of genes from each parent. The combinations that result give the following colors in chickens:
When there is no blue gene present in the pair, any black markings will be normally colored (i.e. they will appear black)
When there is one blue gene present in the pair, any feathers that would have been black on the bird will be diluted to blue (which can appear as anything from a slate gray to a darker, colonial blue color).
When there are two blue genes present in the pair, any black will be diluted to (blue splashed) white. This variety is called “splash.”
We are so looking forward to being able to offer hatching eggs and day-old chicks from these parents in the coming 2019 hatching season! First, we have to brave the cold, but we are praying that they’ll all come through just fine, and we’ll have lots of beautiful babies to share come spring! If you’d like to reserve chicks for 2019, please email us today.
I have decided to use a time-tested method of gathering information about my laying hens. It’s called trap nesting. Using one of various methods, you trap your hens as they enter their nest boxes individually to lay, and then manually release them afterwards. Thus, you can identify without a doubt which hen laid which egg, and keep highly accurate records. It is a bit labor intensive, because traps must be checked every couple of hours since hens get quite thirsty after laying and are eager to exit the nest.
There are a myriad of reasons for trap nesting practices. Here are a handful of them:
Find out how consistently (or if?) your hens are laying.
Identify your best layers so that you breed them, and thus over time, increase overall egg production in your flock.
Link eggs with specific hens when seeking to breed for egg color enhancements in the flock (very handy when breeding Marans for those darker eggs, for instance).
Identify eggs with specific hens when doing flock mating. Thus, you can house more than one hen with a single cock, yet know exactly which specific paring produces exactly which eggs. Then, you can label and incubate and tag chicks and know with certainty what your blood lines are.
Find out who your egg eater is (it might be a rat!).
There are more, and I am undertaking trap nesting for all these reasons. This is the first post on this topic, and I anticipate sharing more as I go down this road. This post is about my build.
Chez Poulez converted
I have an old building that came with my farm when we bought it, seven years ago now. It was a tractor run below and a grain storage building above. The whole thing is about 24’ x 18’; the lower half (12’ x 18’) has long been converted into a coop for my layer flock. This part of the original building had been outfitted with a 3’ x 18’ corn-crib extension, which was partitioned off from the main space, so we didn’t use until this year. The extension has a central door in the 18’ lone wall; thus, the crib has a left side and a right side. Last winter, we put a pop door into the left side and created some sheltered roosts.
Before demolition
This summer, I’ve broken into the right side to create improved nests with (removable) trap door flaps. This is that right side before I began demolition. We had faced it with some 1/2” plywood because the first use we made of this space was for my horse. So, this was her kickboard.
It took some doing to remove this plywood, and under it were ancient (really tough) boards that were held on by rusted, tough old nails. It was definitely good exercise to pry all this wall apart.
Corn crib exposed after demolition.
After I got all of these boards off, I was confronted with verticle studs, which were of varying depths. I had to decide whether to replace these with a new header or leave them as they were. I decided on the latter because, well, I’m no carpenter, and these are chickens. 😬
It’s not easy to see, but the floorboards of the crib section were loose, and some were rotted. I removed, cleaned, and then put them back. In places where they couldn’t be used, I patched them with new boards, and then put down a layer of 1/4” hardware cloth. This was followed by some insulation, and then a tilted floor of plywood. (I tilted it from back to front in the hope that eggs, when laid, would roll forward to where I can more easily retrieve them.
Wire over dividers; 2nd tier floor
I then constructed 12” high dividers that were 24” deep, and 1” x 2” supports for them that are 15” tall in the front. These then support the 2” x 3” beam that runs across the fronts of the boxes, forming the lip for the second tier of nesting boxes. All in all, there are 14 boxes: 7 below and 7 above. (On the roof of the second tier, we now store bales of shavings—and trap rats. 😏
On the lower tier, there is a 4”-6” space above each divider, between nesting boxes. I originally intended this to be only 3” at the most, and was content that no hens would hurt themselves trying to get through them, but as the 2” x 3” cross beam was laid in place, the vertical space increased. We ended up putting 1/4” hardware cloth down the length of the boxes on top of the 12” dividers so that the hens would not seek to exit the boxes on the sides after being trapped.
In the picture above, you can get an idea of the slope of the roll-away nesting boxes. This is both the ceiling of the first tier and the floor of the second tier. You can also see the 1/4” hardware cloth that we inserted to keep hens from exiting through the space.
Finished: 14 nest boxes
Finally, all the nesting boxes were constructed, and it was time to create the trap doors. I used 1/4” luan, embroidery floss, a jigsaw, a staple gun, finishing nails, and Velcro in constructing these. In my next post, I’ll detail how I designed them, and how they operate, but for now, here’s a picture of the first three set into place: boxes # 2, 4, and 6. They are on the lower tier, and are numbered right to left (since we enter the coop on the right side).
Below is a close up shot of #2, set and waiting for a hen to enter.
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:
Anonymous Proverb: “You learn something new every day.”
King Solomon famously wrote, “There’s nothing new under the sun.”
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?
Broody Hen
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.
Completed MHP cave
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!
Chicks warming up
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!
There is no danger of fire from heat lamps, which has always been a concern to those who use them.
There are no accidental burns from heat lamps, which is great especially when grandchildren are helping with (and/or enjoying) newly hatched chicks.
The MHP method supports the establishment of night/day cycle in chicks which is the most natural to them.
Chicks choose their degree of warmth and/or activity freely.
You can brood in unheated spaces: garages, barns, etc. (They still need protection from predators and drafts.)
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).
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.
We go through less feed/water as a result of their sleeping soundly all night.
Chicks may feather faster. (I have yet to experience this one for myself.)
You’ll find pictures and information galore there, but if you want a summary, here it is:
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).
Wire frame properly bent
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.)
Draped towel and Press N Seal half added
Over the pad, drape a hand towel, large enough to lap over the front and back.
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.)
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.”
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.)
MHP in trough brooder indoors
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.
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:
Outdoor MHP w/heat lamp
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
Some under; some out
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.
Happily adjusted
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
In and Out: Their Choice!
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.
When there is no blue gene present in the pair, any black markings will be normally colored (i.e. they will appear black)
