Does anyone else think anything over 90* is excessive, not necessary?

[SandyRiverChick]

HA!!! You think we don’t plug our cars in in South Dakota or Wyoming?

Oh geeze, sorry, I stand corrected! Brutal weather with wind. Alaska is likely easier in ways since it's dry (except southeast.)

 

[Jaime918]

Thank you so much, I'm going to look into this for next year. I agree with you that the bottom heat is proving to be unnecessary. It just didn't seem warm enough to me when I considered my overnight temps with nothing but my ole reliable heating pad, so I panicked. Now I'm thinking it just takes a really long time to heat up. It could be ready to die since it's 8years old.

Mine takes about an hour but less than two to reach full temperature. 8 years is impressive!

 

[SandyRiverChick]

Mine takes about an hour but less than two to reach full temperature. 8 years is impressive!

Indeed! It's name really is "ole reliable," it pre-dates all of the auto-shut off hassles...

 

[WonkierZulu]

I add babies every couple years, have been for 20years. I have NEVER let my chick brooder get hotter than about 85* and that's just day 1 through 5. After than it's around 75-80. It just seems way to hot to start at 100. Yet everything you read as a newbie says start at 100*.... I just don't. And they're great. I have a mommy hut to go under if they get cold but that's certainly not 100* either. Just curious how many people don't agree with excessive heat....

I totally agree the 95 thing is ridiculous. When I first started I did start at 95 degrees. Realized after a couple hatches the chicks at that temp got pasty butt alot easier. Never went over 90 again. I only run it to 90 if the chicks hatch during a cold period. Had many of chicken mama's hatch during fall and winter months and never had many loses from cold. Except when one chick fell out of the nest box at night when it was hatching. Yes I have a camera in my coop. Needless to say if people want the ultimate incubator a serama momma is hard to beat. Never had a silkie momma hear they are great too.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

You know I have to add that I'm surprised at how unafraid of me these chicks are after reading about not reaching in from the top. Initially I thought, it can't make THAT much difference. But it seems like it really does. They come zooming out of the MH when I approach, very curious about me instead of scramming out of the way of the hand/arm reaching down towards them from the sky.

 

[Jaime918]

Indeed! It's name really is "ole reliable," it pre-dates all of the auto-shut off hassles...

I love everything older. Everything was absolutely more reliable and better built which also makes it harder to come by.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

Realized after a couple hatches the chicks at that temp got pasty butt alot easier.

SO Agree with you! It's kind of frustrating how many people accept pasty butt as normal and hold tight to high temps. That said I have to remind myself that the pressure of having this teenie tiny new life dependent on your care is serious to everyone and we're all just trying to do what we think is right. I hold people who have asserted and documented all of these mandates that newbies have to live by or "you'll have a frozen chick," more accountable for the misinformation.

 

[Canina]

I always understood those old recommendations to be the temperature right by the heat lamp, with the rest of the brooder cooler. (My sources: a selection of hatchery websites, state cooperative extension sites, and books from several decades ago that were based on such guidelines.)

Using a heat lamp to warm just one area, while the rest of the brooder is cooler, lets the chicks move back and forth between cooler and warmer areas, similar to what your heating pad allows.

But that requires quite a bit of space, more than most people are willing to provide in their house (or even in some chicken coops!)

This. My brooder is a vivarium with a heat lamp on the ceiling and a heat mat on a thermostat across the floor with bedding on top but it's only just warm enough to stop it getting cold in there, the lamp on one end creates a whole temperature gradient just like in the snake tank below so they an thermoregulate themselves. I also give them a hide if they want to get away from the light

 

[rosemarythyme]

Now I'm thinking it just takes a really long time to heat up. It could be ready to die since it's 8years old.

Probably... they don't function well forever. Instruction manual on my old heating pad put it at 2007, so I did finally have to retire it as it wasn't really heating up that much any longer. Still raised my last batch of chicks on it in 2020.

 

[Canina]

When I brood with a heat lamp in my garage or outdoors, with a "brooder" at least 4 by 6 feet, there is plenty of cooler area. (That 4x6 feet is the space the chicks have, with the entire garage being bigger, or the entire outdoors being much bigger.) Yes, the chicks DO have ambient temperatures for at least 1/3 of the brooder the way I do it.

In a house, with a small brooder, yes it is a problem.


Unplugging the heat lamp when the chicks no longer need it, or using a smaller bulb in the first place, are two possible solutions. And the chicks "no longer need it" at a young age if they are in a heated house.


I agree, if the brooder area is small, your heating pad cave is much better than a heat lamp.

Agreed. You can also have the lamp on a a thermostat and/or rheostat to vary the temperature. I just turn the heat setting down as time goes on and I use a mercury vapour spotlight that concentrates heat in one place. People who keep reptiles understand how to regulate temps and humidity in an enclosure. According to my infra red gun and the 5 other thermometers there is a good gradient even in the small space though at some point I turn off the lamp and just let them have the heat pad/mat underfloor