Brooder Temp.

[Ian Clelland]

Hello all, I set up my brooder for our meat chick that arrive this week. It says to have 4" of shavings and a brooding light 2" from shavings and put the thermometer under the light. I did this and the thermometer went of the charts this is a normal house hold thermometer for mounting to the wall to read the temp. Do I need a special thermometer for the brooder or will this one do. Do I just raise the light until the thermometer reads 95 or what, I'm at a loss here. Want to get it right before the birds arrive.

 

[Pendragonz]

Hi Ian,
I raised meat chickens last fall, a batch of 40. That is way too low for the heat lamp. I started with mine about a foot above the shavings, and that was October. I would raise it to about a foot and check the temperature. The other thing you can do is to get a lamp dimmer, which is a cord with a slide switch, the heat lamp cord plugs into it and then the dimmer cord into the wall. This will serve to lower the temp as the chicks get older, but also makes it easier to get the temperature right for the new ones. Best of luck with the new chicks. They are a lot of fun. I am now raising 25 chicks that will be laying hens. Looking forward to having fresh eggs from MY own chickens.

 

[Ian Clelland]

Thank you! This is very helpful.
We have laying chickens but we got them at 8 months old so did not have to do this last year. Our layers have brooded their chicks this year so again did not need to do the brooding. Our layers have been a joy to watch but we had to stop free ranging them this year because of foxes, we lost three hens and 4 chicks to them.
Again Thank You!

 

[Pendragonz]

You're very welcome. Good luck with those meaties!

 

[Pendragonz]

My intentions were to free range my laying hens when they get old enough. However I've been hearing horror stories lately about the predator problems with letting them free range. A friend told me about a product called golden malrin. Google it. So I may end up building a run for my laying hens and subsequent batches of meat chickens as well.