OK, I realize this is an old thread, but in case anyone comes searching.... I am in the midst of rearing chicks off grid. When you are off grid you aren't able to manage a heat lamp - too much drain on the battery bank if you have one. So, for the first two weeks we kept the woodstove going. I was walking around the house in shorts - it was up to 80 degrees! We heated bricks by sitting them on top of the woodstove. We'd wrap towel pieces around them and put those in the brooders. The chicks would snuggle up to those or actually just perch right on top of them. I also had thick plastic 1 gallon jugs. I'd boil water and pour that into the jugs and put the jugs in the brooder. The chicks would snuggle up to those. I didn't monitor the temp, I just watched their behavior. The chicks told me by their behavior when they were chilly and needed the water reheated, or newly heated bricks. For the first 3 weeks, I was going to bed at say around 10:30p leaving hot water jugs and hot wrapped bricks for them. Then around 2am or so, I'd get up and do it all again. Then, one of us would be up around 5:30am doing it all again for them. It worked great, although I was quite sleep deprived. Now, at 3 weeks I am not getting up in the night anymore. Our house is around 70+ degrees generally (passive solar) and the chicks are fine at that temp. On a cloudy day, if we get cooler I might fill a jug with boiling water for them to snuggle up to. But, at this point, they have each other and they are doing fine.
