Another poster has referred to this as a "broody bucket" because she uses a 5 gallon bucket with the wool strips hanging from the top.
The idea for the wool hen and the broody bucket is to use no heat at all. When I transfer the chicks outside I will remove the seedling mat. BUT there is a styrofoam box I am building right now that is key to the whole thing. That and sheer numbers of chicks. This time around I will have eleven or twelve outside with no heat beginning tonight or tomorrow. and I'm pretty sure they'll do fine. Because I've had seventeen chicks in outside in my earlier version (which was "borrowed" and never returned) Those chicks at three days old were in temps as low as 45 degrees overnight and 65 during the day with the wool hen. No illness. No apparent issues at all.
The idea here is to develop something that works to brood chicks without a broody hen and with no electricity needed at all. It looks like this is the ticket for that.
