Hatching Chicks in the Classroom

[sadhbhl]

Hi everyone,
I am hatching chicks in the classroom in a Brinsea mini advance incubator which are due to hatch this coming Wednesday.
The children are very excited about this and I just have a few questions that I was hoping someone could help me out with. I have hens at home but never have hatched them myself before.
I have both a Brinsea Ecoglow brooder and an infrared lamp (50w) and I was wondering which would be more suitable and safe for the classroom as I have heard that the lamps can sometimes cause fires? Would the heat from the ecoglow brooder be sufficient for new chicks considering that they are indoors or will they need the extra heat from the lamp?
Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[PrairieChickens]

If you have an ecoglow, absolutely use it. Besides being a fire hazard, heat lamps don't let chicks fulfill the instinct to be warm in the darkness, as they would be under a mother hen. As for whether or not it will be sufficient, the heat source chicks fresh out of the egg need is not really any different from the heat source a chick that is a day old would need. If it's good enough for a days-old chick, it will be good enough for a minutes- or hours-old chick. Most folks leave the chicks in the incubator until they've dried off anyway, if that helps put your mind at ease.

 

[Basil G]

I've heard people just use the Brinsea ecoglow brooder. When I used the lamp some was home (most of the time) to watch. I'm going to try and use one of my broodies this year as a heat source, not just as an incubator.

 

[gander007]

I would thing that in a school with children you would not use a lamp as one of the children could touch the lamp and get hurt so I would go with the Brinsea ecoglow Brooder

 

[sadhbhl]

Thanks for all the help and advice, think I'll go with the brooder