Brooder questions

[IcyWolf]

First off, thanks to everyone that has helped answer my many questions lately, I know I must be getting annoying by now, I have one last question though. We should have babies in the next 2-4 days, as I've mentioned about a million times, I'm going to pull them at 2 weeks. I'm trying to get everything prepared now so that we can make this as stress free as possible. I was originally going to use a 5 or a 10 gallon aquarium as a brooder for the babies, but then I realized I must have sold all of my small tanks when I went on my crazy aquarium selling spree. I was worried that they would be too big for the babies anyway, so I grabbed one of my small critter keeper cages instead. It's about 6inches tall, 3.5 inches deep and about 7 inches wide. Those are completely just estimates from me eyeballing it. My question is, should I use some sort of heat lamp on them and if so what kind, white, red, blue? I also have some Under tank heaters I could use if need be. Our room doesn't usually get below 70 degrees so I wasn't sure if supplemental heating would be necessary for them or not. The bird "farm" I used to volunteer at kept their babies in 2.5-5 gallon aquariums, and I don't remember them using any secondary heat source for them, they just kept the room pretty warm. These were all for larger parrot species though.

My other question is, what should I use as bedding for the little guys? I currently have aspen chips in the nestbox, so they will be on that at least until I pull them. Should I use aspen in the brooder box or something else. I figured I could use clothe, but that would be a little obnoxious to clean since I would probably just throw the dirty clothe out and replace it, just from fear of using laundry soap on something that is for babies. Then there is newspaper/ paper towels, more economical, but it doesn't seem very comfy.

Removing them from the nest box is the one thing that really has me asking a lot of questions since the store I worked at, we would hand feed the babies, but we didn't take them away from the parents. We just took them out of the nest box for their feedings and to be weighed, then put them back in. I really don't like doing it that way though and the only reason I did it then was because the store owner insisted on it.

 

[MikeyTN]

Here's a simple brooder box that's great for babies at 2 weeks old. Use that tank you've got, use one of those clamp on lamp you can purchase at your local hardware store like home depot or lowes. Maynards up north, Ace Hardware or which ever....Use a 60w regular bulb, cover one side of the tank with a towel. I use the wood shavings in my brooder. I also have used paper towel. It's up to you!

 

[IcyWolf]

I have plenty of clamp lights from keeping reptiles, are you sure a 60watt bulb won't be too warm for such a small cage? Do you know the actual temp they should be kept at, I don't feel comfortable putting a heat source on them without a thermometer in the brooder, don't wanna cook the little guys! And should the light be kept on for a certain amount of time, like 12 hours on, 12 hours off? I would probably have to keep the lid off if I put a lamp on it too, those plastic lids tend to melt really easy. It's one of these: Mini Exo Terra Faunarium Critter Keeper

 

[MikeyTN]

Oh that's what you have....I use a 10g aquarium. At two weeks old, with multiple babies together, as long as they're not anywhere near draft or house being cold, they should be able to keep one another warm pretty good. When I used to have to travel out of state when I had babies, I used those one gallon ice cream buckets fill it with bedding and poke holes on the lid and I covered the babies with a towel. They kept each other warm just fine, usually in there for about 3-4 days before home.

 

[IcyWolf]

I was going to use a 10 gallon tank, I used to have about 15 of them but when I was forced to get out of the reptile hobby, I moved all of my aquariums into my mom's basement. After about 6 months of them being there, I started to sell them off on craigslist. I could have swore I kept a few small ones but the smallest one I could find was a 20L. Then, I was looking online and it said that the brooder should be about the size of the nest box so I figured the kritter keeper would work better anyway. Our birds are in our room, which has no windows, no drafts and an electric heater that I keep on most of them time. I would be surprised if it ever gets below 70 degrees in here, and I could always keep it warmer if necessary. I've raised a lot of ducklings and I always kept a red heat lamp on them but they were always in at least a 30 gallon tank so it was plenty big enough to establish some sort of heat gradient that they could choose how warm they wanted to be. And ducklings are a lot more independent than baby psitticines as well.

 

[MikeyTN]

I used to have gosling that we kept in the house until they got older to go outside. They're cute when young.....

 

[IcyWolf]

we raised 8 muscovys last year, the mom floated down the creek during a fllood and layed eggs right before it snowed. We were certain the babies wouldn't make it so we intervened and raised them ourselves, then reunited them with momma duck back at the creek. Even after releasing them, they were still supr friendly and would come up and sit right in your lap. And a few years ago I had a pekin named gomer that lived in our house, we even made him a ducky diaper

 

[MikeyTN]

Ducky diaper....ROFLMAO....I wish I would of think if that with the gosling... very messy!

 

[cockatielfan17]

i saw on a websit that if u put a heat pad under the tank u should put it only in half and then over put wodd shaving then over that put a towel because the wood shavings dissperses the heat evenly so there wont be a hot spot