BROODER thread! Post pics of your brooders!

[MarineCorpFarmr]

they need area to get away from the heat and cool off, and youd be better off with something with solid sides. My brooders are 4'x6'x2'h and hold up to 100 chicks

 

[chicklover23]

o.k. any other thing that i could buy to use

 

[MarineCorpFarmr]

stainless tubs work well, the real large plastic totes would work too. youll need some kind of screening or hardware cloth for the top

 

[chicklover23]

alright thanks for the tips

 

[MarineCorpFarmr]

How many chicks are you getting?

 

[cowcreekgeek]

Thanks for that. How long will a car battery power the bulbs? My UPS is a 1500kva and since I'm away for 7 hours not enough to power the bulbs for long enough but the 14w heat mat lasts a long time!
I'll definitely be investigating some of your ideas next year. And I don'tthink iit's ott. Notwhen you have
bought tthe eggs for £20 dozen
Incubated for 23 days
And invested all the time into raising them and heart break
I'd rather go to work knowing they are safe. I know with my setup I'm safe from bulbs fusing (not rare) and power cuts.
You could have 10 bulbs but one power cut will obviously render them useless.

You're welcome, and I completely agree that it's worth the extra money/effort ... heard where some employee of a chicken operation was being sued for the value of the 70K chickens lost, due to them mistakingly throwing the wrong switch -- as if it wasn't the owner/management that was responsible, for failing to have safeguards/alarms/etc.

Rather than simply admitting that I don't know the answer, the question you ask about runtime isn't a simple one to calculate by pure theory ...

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Voltage here, in the US, is nominally 117VAC (volts alternating current), at 60 hz (cycles per second) which forms a sine wave pattern similar to this (where the dotted portion continues into the negative voltage as the second half of the wave). Inverters reverse the voltage, as the solid line shows. But, during that 1/120th of a second? The voltage goes from zero to peak and back to zero, which leaves an average ... the 'root mean square' of the maximum is a closer representation of the actual power consumed. For my purposes, when a circuit is purely resistive (light bulb elements, resistors, and such) and not reactive (such as capacitors and coils) then I sorta rough it in by multiplying .707 w/ the available maximum (or, 70.7% of 117VAC), so as to get a better idea of the true work that can be done w/ what comes through the wires.
Then, there's the efficiency (or lack thereof) of the inverter itself ... there are some that drop very little voltage (which means they use little power).
And, then, of course? The battery used ... how many amp/hours can it hold, and how many cold cranking amps can it produce, determine how long it can run (oh, yeah .. forgot ... also depends on the resistance of the bulbs themselves, 'cause a 125W is gonna allow more current flow than a 100W).

Whew .. that's some heavy readin' there. But, you seem the type that wouldn't want the simple answer either ~'-)

During the winter, our power often fails. I can run the Sony TV and a 60W equiv. compact florescent for about 140 minutes, and it takes about 22 minutes to recharge the battery using the same inverter that I was using in the house to then power the battery charger (didn't wanna use the new honda's alternator to directly jump over to the battery). I think that I was consuming less than 100W, which clearly wouldn't be sufficient for 7 hours.

A few more thoughts, in regard to backup systems?

The inclusion of solar mass makes good sense, all the time ... whether it be heated water, or a layer of bricks ... something that takes a long time to heat up takes nearly as long to cool down, and would even temperatures out when the power was on.

Also, the goal in emergencies shouldn't be to target the ideal temperature, but only to make certain they don't get cold enough to huddle so tightly as to smother one another. A good plan would be to have a relay that turn a switch on when the power goes off, causing the emergency lamps to come on. I'm thinkin' a completely different source of heat than that which is normally in the brooder (the incubator should probably just use the backup power).

One last thing, 'n I'll stop typin' for a while ... the spectrum of light that is visible to poultry extends beyond our own, and I've noticed that I can compel my birds to eat and/or drink by using nothing more than a flashlight. So, I'm thinkin' of illuminating their clear waterers from above w/ leds, and where they sleep most probably w/ red ones (but, gonna look deeper into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums ~'-)

 

[chicklover23]

How many chicks are you getting?

i'm getting five

 

[MarineCorpFarmr]

Plastic storage tub will work fine as long as they can get away from the heat and cool off

 

[chicklover23]

alright thanks i will be doing that

 

[al4x]

does anyone have a very simply brooder idea i could use formy chicks coming in next week?

I use a plastic deep containerlike you use for storage its about 1ftx2ft but iI only have about 10 chicks and they are quail. Then they go into a small animal cage once they are heat tolerant