Long story short, we have a dozen chicks arriving tomorrow and have a last-minute need to travel out of state to visit relatives.

We will be gone for three or four days and probably have someone who can stop by once a day to check food and water. He may only be able to stop by once or twice the whole time we are gone.

The only place we have to put the chick habitat is in a mud room between house and garage. We have successfully started chicks in that room before:

My debate is how to keep them warm. I'm extremely leery of leaving the house unattended with a heat-generating appliance plugged in. However I don't see much alternative. My wife did find some sort of hen heating mat that's supposed to be low current draw and not get too warm, but I can't find anyone I know who has used such a thing.

Any ideas?

I vote for leaving the heat lamp on. In fact, the standard is two lamps in the case that a bulb dies you still have a backup. You have insurance on your home for situations like this.

Can you take them to a neighbor with a barn or storage building?

we have had to do this too before. What we did was put the chicks in a big metal water trough like they sell the chicks in at Rural King or TSC. We move that to the center of the garage floor and hang a heat lamp in it. If there is an accident,,,the metal trough contains the fire since there is nothing close to it to burn. Chicks and some bedding would be the only loss.

dog pound.    I'm not kidding    they will watch them   and keep them warm and fed.  

ask  me how I know that ........

brand new chicks unattended.  ugh.   I hope no chicks get pastey butt.   It'll kill them unattended.

I'd rather pack them up to someone else's house who could check on them 3-4 times a day at their convenience versus someone popping over 2-3 a week.

Truth is many people raising chicks aren't home 24/7. When I raised our first set of chicks, I was gone 14 hours out of the day due to work. We kept them in our garage which was on the other side of the house. By the time I would be alerted that there was a fire, it would probably be too late for me to contain it. Additionally, we have volunteer firefighters and limited resources around where I live. It would end up being more of a controlled burn than anything. We have always used the heat lamps with the metal cages across the front of the bulb to help avoid direct contact with the shavings.

I once thought that, but pine shavings can get awful hot.  Burned my whole shed down because the wood floor caught fire under the galvanized tank.  Use caution.

This, making sure that they are on cement or something non-combustible and there is nothing directly combustible above. I would also use dry sand for bedding. All but eliminates risk of fire.

 

I would use 2 heat lamps of smaller wattage than you normally use. Two for insurance, smaller wattage so you reduce risk of fire, and you have two so you still net more heat. I would put both lamps on the same side so they can self-regulate how much they need (can walk to the other side if they get too hot). Make sure they are in a draft-free (or minimally drafty) area in case they loose 1 bulb.

Sorry about that, but I was just perplexed by the insurance comment.  Chicks aren't worth my house, if I were in the same situation being gone for days I would have to make other arrangements or give the chicks away and start again.

I hear you brother. That was a foolish comment on my part. No hard feelings. I agree with you. Starting over again in a few weeks might be the easiest resolution depending on the help you can find.

Thanks for all of the replies.

Hoping to run into my neighbor to just ask him to stop by more often, maybe offer him money for his time versus just letting him take eggs as usual.

 
This is how we do it too. Even made a little wood framed top with chicken wire to keep out the cats.

That is a DAMN good idea!! I will probably adapt that to my situation when I return home.

After much coercion and promise of lots of eggs, my neighbor came to the rescue to help out this week. But wow, were we unprepared, and was my wife upset for a bit!!

We use the big metal water troughs from TSC for the new chicks.  Put the heat lamp up high enough that the temp only gets to about 90 right under the lamp (we use those cheap little plastic thermometers to check the temp).  We have a bunch of metal display shelving around, so we put those across the top to keep cats, etc. out.  Seems to work great.

BackyardChickens has a heating pad warmer that some people use.  Look for mama heat pad.

You could also look at the Brinsea Ecoglow Brooder.