No, I wouldn't trust another hen/pullet to raise these chicks, especially if she is not already broody. Your safest bet is to bring them inside and raise them yourself. You can make a temporary brooder out of a cardboard box, shavings and heat lamp. Chicks are very easy to raise if you provide them w/food, water, warmth and safety.

-Sheila

how long should i keep them inside? How long before i can introduce them into my flock? Thanks alot for your response Sheila.

It kind of depends on the group, but they need to be a decent size to defend themselves. What breed are they? I keep mine inside for several weeks then move them out to a safe pen inside my coop until they can hold their own with the others. I have lots of silkies in with my growing chickens, they are really mild mannered compared to my large fowl chickens so I usually add new chicks to this group around 4-6 weeks old w/no problem but they would be in big trouble if I tried this w/my stadards.

-Sheila

Sheila is right... brood the chicks yourself the same way you would chicks that you bought as day-olds. Yours being a few days old, it will be a piece of cake. :) Be very careful using a heat lamp over a cardboard box; it can a fire hazard. We've all used this method, but if you are new to it, just be extra vigilant.

You don't say what state you are in but if it is hot, you will not need a lamp for very long. A couple of gallon jugs of hot water with an old towel draped over them like a tent will do the trick.

You will know if they are warm enough by their behavior. If they move around contentedly, popping under the tent for a warm up and coming out to eat. drink and play and if they make contented peep-peep-peep sounds, all is well.

If they sound frantic or very loud, something is not quite right. If they all crowd under the tent and don't want to come out, they are too cold. Using this method is completely safe, but you will need to change the water when it cools off.

My first chicks had problems when they got overheated. They were just two weeks old, under a heat lamp, when one afternoon the weather got suddenly hot. Major war broke out, one chick was pecked to death and half the others were injured. I had hospital boxes all over the house and they had no supplementary heat because who can rig that many lamps?

I was the greenest of newbies at the time. The chicks survived just find at about 70 degrees and horrible as the experience was, it served to teach me that we tend to keep chicks too warm. I'll bet when they were with mama hen they were out running around most of the time and just popping under for a warm up. This is natural. It is also natural for them to have hours of darkness. The hot water tent will provide this nicely.

I realize this is advice is not mainstream and is not what the books say, but it has worked well for me and more closely resembles natural conditions.

The best thing about chicks is that they will let you know if something is wrong. They will peep in a frantic tone that is quite different from their usual sweet sounds. You'll know it if you hear it! That's how they tell mama... and you are their mama now. Listen to them and trust your instincts.

Sorry you lost your hen. :(

Good advice here, Sheila is right. Maggie, I've never heard of the hot water bottle tent, it sounds intriguing! It sounds like it would work very well for nighttime when you want the chicks to sleep in darkness (which a lamp obviously does not provide!) How long do the water bottles hold heat, how hot do you make the water, is there any risk of chicks getting burned, etc.? I'd love to hear more about this!

OP, I have a chicken info site here that might help, here's the section on chicks:

http://home.earthlink.net/~velvetsparrow/VSChickHensBroodiesChicks.htm

I use a large box (like one for appliances) for my chicks--even though it seems HUGE at first, it allows for room to grow and roam for the chicks so they don't suffer from overcrowding. Here's some pics of some of my brooder boxes--set up and ready, but not showing the chicken wire top I put on them:

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With chicks installed! :)
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What the window looks like, here's Millie visiting some chicks:
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Velvet ~:>

Well, you know me, Velvet... low tech and as close to nature as is reasonably possible. Someone on one of the poultry forums posted about the hot water jug method a few years ago. I believe they were living off grid and could not run a heat lamp. Alaska, if my memory serves me. Colder than here in Southern Ontario and certainly colder than California.

My chicks were in the greenhouse, so daytime temperatures were plenty warm in there, even in May. I had to watch they didn't get too hot. If it did I put them out on the lawn in a broody pen for a while. I filled the two water jugs around 9 or 10 PM and made their tent and because the nights got cool in there I put an old blanket right over the cage. My son, who is next thing to nocturnal, changed the bottles sometime between 2 am and 4 am... so say they lasted about six hours. I'd change them again when I got up and unless it was cloudy the greenhouse was plenty warm by the time those bottles cooled.

I used tap water as hot as I could get it. The jugs were plastic gallon vinegar jugs. The chicks seemed to quite happy with the arrangement and no one got burned. I guess they have enough sense to move away. I think perhaps I wrapped a thin cloth around the bottles at first. It's a good idea anyway, I think, just to be safe.

Sorry to be so vague. It's been a very long day here. But if the hot water tent interests you, you will want to take a look at this idea. An insulated pasture brooder heated only by the chicks' own body heat! I thought it was pretty cool.

I'm off to bed. If this is full of errors or doesn't make sense, I'll clarify it tomorrow. (I caught at least a dozen mistakes while reading it over, so that makes me think there must be more.) I've been at the computer nearly all day writing up ebay descriptions for our antiques and collectables and I'm bushed.

Here is a link that might be useful: Insulated Unheated Brooder

Hi Maggie and Velvet,
we used the hot water bottles (soda 2 liter and gallon milk jugs) when we lost electricity during a bad storm. We heated the water on the gas stove and every 3-4 hours re-filled them since it was VERY COLD inside and out. It worked great! the chicks huddled around the bottles just as needed, we also put blankets over the brooder to help hold in the heat.

Maggie, those are great links!

Velvet, that is one interesting heat lamp!

MTS, how are your chicks doing?

-Sheila

Hey Sheila! So tell me, did you hear about the hot water tent somewhere, or did you just use your head? :) It's an idea everyone should know about in case of power failure or even heat lamp failure. You're lucky to have a gas stove to heat water even when the power is off. I'd have to use the barbecue or dig out a camp stove. But there is always a way!

I guess you could say my dh used his head lol! I can't take the credit for that one but he's pretty resourceful, never heard of other people using the method:) just used the only things we had access to at the time.

-Sheila

Well good for your dh, Sheila! Definitely resourceful. :)

Well dang, guys--with your permission I'm going to add that bit of advice on hot water bottles to my chicken site when I revamp it soon. :) Great thinking, and especially fantastic for power outages! The hover is very interesting, I remember seeing his page a while back and wondering if it would work on birds other than broilers (other breeds are going to want to climb on the hover and roost on it) and it looks like he's answered those questions.

Ha, ha--my fancy 'heat lamp' is just an old gooseneck desk lamp with a 65 or 75 watt bulb in it. I like it because it has a wide, heavy base and is way too heavy for the chicks to knock over, even when they inevitable perch on the neck when they are playing 'jump on brother/sister's head'. The neck is super strong and can only be re-adjusted by a human, and the flamingo head is made of ceramic and is too slick for chicks to perch on. :)

Fancy schmancy, that's me. *G*

Velvet ~:>

Velvet, shouldn't that be a flamingoneck lamp??? :)

By all means add the hot water tent to your website. The more people who know the better. You might also add the "two for one" bucket trick. Not everyone likes creeping around in the chicken house in the wee small hours to sneak chicks under mama hen. Of course, it doesn't work unless the hen already has some chicks.

Your site reaches a lot of people. It's good to share ideas and you do a fine job of it!