Warming up cold babies

[birds4me]

I just thought I'd put this out there incase anyone else needs some help warming up cold chicks.

I had a wonderful breeder send me some silkie chicks. I picked them up from the post office around 5am this morning. All babies except for one traveled well. The one that did not was cold, ridged, peeping loudly, and had it's eyes closed.

We brood all babies in the house. So I brought babies up to the house and put them in the brooder with some sugar water and showed them all the food and water. Since baby was still not inproving and was still cold, I put some instant rice in a baggie (around 1+ cups) and then put some water in there and heated for 2 mintues in the microwave. Baggie came out warm, but not HOT. Covered baggie with a wash cloth and put it in the brooder and placed baby on it. With in minutes we had a MAJOR turn around!! The rice baggie has stayed warm for hours and is easy to reheat.

Just thought I'd pass this on incase anyone else can use this. I found this much easier then a heating pad especially since now most pads have auto shut off. Seems like warming baby up from underneith and from above REALLY REALLY helped. Now all babies are sleeping on their new "matress".

 

[suzeqf]

that's awesome you can also fill an old sock with rice or beans and heat it up and it does the same thing

 

[tryingtohaveitall]

Great idea. Thanks for sharing!

 

[ChickLit]

Thank you for this idea!!

We had an emergency yesterday morning...at about 6:15 my cat woke me up to let him out...I stumbled downstairs then stood there with my sleepy head knowing something was wrong. It took a minute to dawn on me, but I realized that the power was out!! THE BABIES!!!!!!

I ran out to check on them as my husband ran behind me to grab the generator...the brooder temp was down to 50º (we found out later that the power had only been off about 45 minutes at that time...but they're in a small outside coop) and they were all huddled together in the corner cheeping. It was just heartbreaking!! Luckily the generator cranked right up, the heat lamp came on and within a couple of minutes the temp started to rise. Babies soon started moving away from each other, and heading for the water & food :hew::

The power came on about an hour later, thank goodness...disaster averted!!

I was thinking, since the power was out (and if the generator had a problem) I wouldn't be able to microwave anything, so I could heat the water on either the woodstove or campstove to warm but not boiling. It makes so much sense...thank you again!

 

[suzeqf]

you can also use hand/boot warmers that you get at a sporting goods store they work the same way as the ice packs that you hit and it combines the chemicals if you use one of them between to dish towels all little critters will love you

 

[pixiedouglas]

this is great advice! we had a power flicker when our babies were little and then stared at each other like OMG what are we going to do if the power goes out?!? lucky for us it stayed on, but this is good to know!

 

[suzeqf]

where i live we are always losing power so we have all sorts of things to keep us warm it's keep cool when it goes out in august that's the trick

 

[birds4me]

The best thing about this is that when they are done needing the warm pack, you can feed the now cooked rice to the adult chickens!!! Babies get warmed up, older chicks/chickens get a treat & I can now rest easy knowing all is well with my fuzzy and feathered ones.

 

[wiseazz]

I wish to thank you for your post. I just found one of my 8 week old chick today very cold and possibly knocking on heaven's door. And I read this post, and everyone's replies. So i got a heat pad and heat lamp, and warmed up my little lady. With in a matter of minutes, she was moving and chirping. In about 30 minutes she was eating and drinking. I am going to keep her in the house, and watch her for the next couple of days. Again thank you everyone.