Brinsea eco glo heat plate external temp

[Ilovechickens2525]

Hi! My chicks are over two weeks old now and have been inside in my indoor brooder with the Brinsea heat plate, they are rapidly outgrowing their space and need to get into my larger brooder in my garage.

Note about the garage: it’s huge, they are not exposed to vehicle exhaust, they are on a separate area that’s more like a shed, I’ve raised chicks here several times and I’m not worried about it being a garage.

My concern is, when I raised chicks here before we were heating the garage with boiler plates and it was way warmer. Now the garage is sitting between 43-48 degrees. Is this too cold for the chicks at this age with a heat plate?

They’ve been running around, not under their heat plate much, inside at 63-67 degrees.

It’s not bad out this week but next weeks going to be colder so I feel like this is the better week to transition them and get them used to a little bit colder temps.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'd contact Brinsea and see what they have to say.

As big as that garage is ventilation isn't a problem. As long as breezes are not hitting them my gut feeling is that they will be OK but I don't use a heat plate.

 

[Ilovechickens2525]

I'd contact Brinsea and see what they have to say.

As big as that garage is ventilation isn't a problem. As long as breezes are not hitting them my gut feeling is that they will be OK but I don't use a heat plate.

The Brinsea guide says external temperature should be 50 degrees, so I know I am under the official recommendation, but I’m thinking logically as the feather out that number should decrease right? And I’m not too far below that number.

I know when I’ve had chicks hatch under hens they start going out and about pretty quickly in cooler temperatures than I have them in the brooder and seem very happy!

 

[debid]

This is why I didn't buy my heater from Brinsea. They designed theirs to be used in a heated house and I wanted a true hen substitute. So, I don't KNOW that it is enough but it probably is since they are partially feathered. I'd imagine Brinsea is conservative with their numbers in the name of CYA.

You could go ahead and try it, check on them a few times and see that they aren't distress peeping? You can always bring them back in if they are complaining.

FWIW, 50W brooding panels are available now. They weren't when I built mine but mine is 50W. So, I can verify that this output is plenty for all temperatures above 10F. Likely below, as well, that's just the coldest I have personally witnessed. They looked completely happy in their little coop and there was enough heat being emitted to keep their water from freezing (it was about 6" away).

 

[Debbie292d]

I don't use one, but we had two-week-old chicks outside when it was around 20F. They are silkies, even so, this shocked me. They had a momma, but there were 40 of them, so they obviously couldn't fit. There was a Cozy Coop flat panel radiant heater in their hutch. They would run in, warm up, then go running around outside.

As long as that thing is putting off heat, they'll find it when they need it.