Yes. The best way to tell temp is not by a thermometer but by listening to your peeps. You have a good instinct. Quiet = content & warm. What I like to do (since I use shavings) is vary the level slightly. The bedding is deeper/higher in back, so the chicks can nuzzle up & touch the plate but less in front where they can be near but not touch the heating pad. They will adjust their own heat level by sleeping where it feels best.
So far we have 5 chicks from our test hatch.(Today's hatch day.) The 2 strongest that hatched yesterday went under the broody inside the brooder last night. (Yesterday afternoon, she was attacking them, so I tried again after dark.) All seemed OK this morning so the silkie has all 5 now.
Here's my Peck N Play brooder with a supplemental "Mama Heating Pad."
Two eggs from Oopsie hatched the lighter orps. At 1st I thought blue, but perhaps mauve. The 3 silver laced orp eggs hatched out black. I guess the lav orp was the daddy this time. The laced orps have been separated for 3 weeks now, so I expect my next hatch to be more predictable. (My only problem was that GG (Buff Colombian orp) stood next to the tractor with her friends all day as hawk bait. So I had to add her to the laced breeding group. LOL)
Here's the one that may be blue or mauve. The other one of Oopsie's chicsk may be blue or black. It's hard to tell. They are not the usual inky black.
After I started pecking at the food with my finger, the silkie caught on started showing her chicks.
I'll probably get some more chicks. There's one inside the incubator that pipped upside down at the narrow end. It's peeping but not in a frantic way, so I'm leaving it there.
so far I have resisted the urge to incubate.. I am waiting for turkey eggs... so far she hasn't laid any that i have found anyway
I shared the info on my housing before but here it is again.
After Thanksgiving and until Spring I house my chickens inside my loft inside garage. First, I only have a few as pets (currently 6). The second and probably very important reason for keeping them there is,,,,,, No need to let them out in the morning, as well as making sure we are home to lock them up at night. Gets dark early before we get home during winter.
In the garage they have sufficient room in my loft that I made for them and Pigeons. Now since I don't have pigeons currently, I opened up both sections for them to roam. There is light 12 hours on a timer so they don't go nutty.I also have my water containers kept warm. (electric)
During severe cold, I have a wood stove in garage that I can fire up to take out some of the chill. My cats also sleep in garage at night. All are feral rescue BTW, and fixed,
This year I did not need to use stove very much since it did not get very cold in my area. My goal is not to make it warm in garage, but rather to prevent extreme cold.
Seramas are not very cold hardy breed. Many peeps do keep them in their home. I have no desire to do such, but the Garage heated to minimal during extreme cold worked well. I am still trying to mastermind a heated roost for inside coop. It is during the night that the temps are cold and chickens could use some added warmth to get thru.
Seramas are feisty enough to be able to get along with LF chickens. They are not aggressive, but do not want to be at bottom of pecking order. What that translated to is,,,,, They can carry their own. My OEGH (2) are the same way.
So here are some solutions for cold weather housing. @Faraday40 , you can take them into garage along with your roosters, for the cold nights, (separate crate) . @chickendreams24 you say to DH2B,,,, "Honey, Suzie needs to be in crate in our hallway for this cold night". I would avoid keeping in too warm of a spot to not offset chickens accustomed tolerance to cold. During the day seramas join flock on regular basis. There would probably not be that many very cold days where we live. Further north and away from the lake does get slightly chillier.
This was Gorbie inside winter housing. The one that went MIA. Cant seem to locate pix of the other one at this time.
And this is my current flock
So far we have 5 chicks from our test hatch.(Today's hatch day.) The 2 strongest that hatched yesterday went under the broody inside the brooder last night. (Yesterday afternoon, she was attacking them, so I tried again after dark.) All seemed OK this morning so the silkie has all 5 now.
Here's my Peck N Play brooder with a supplemental "Mama Heating Pad."
Two eggs from Oopsie hatched the lighter orps. At 1st I thought blue, but perhaps mauve. The 3 silver laced orp eggs hatched out black. I guess the lav orp was the daddy this time. The laced orps have been separated for 3 weeks now, so I expect my next hatch to be more predictable. (My only problem was that GG (Buff Colombian orp) stood next to the tractor with her friends all day as hawk bait. So I had to add her to the laced breeding group. LOL)
Here's the one that may be blue or mauve. The other one of Oopsie's chicsk may be blue or black. It's hard to tell. They are not the usual inky black.
After I started pecking at the food with my finger, the silkie caught on started showing her chicks.
I'll probably get some more chicks. There's one inside the incubator that pipped upside down at the narrow end. It's peeping but not in a frantic way, so I'm leaving it there.
Here are the 1st 5 chicks. Round 2 starts tomorrow!
The two standing in back are from Oopsie. She's a genetically a mauve orp but has a strange recessive white gene (so she looks creamy-yellow white instead of mauve) and her chicks can be a wide variety of colors. The smaller one laying down is a black orp. Father was likely a lav or blk/lav split orp.
What colors do you think Oopsie's chicks will be?
Mauve & Blue?
or
Blue & Black?
The back 2 switched sides for this pic:
These 2 below hatched from eggs from one of my pullets: (silver laced orp, blue silver laced orp, or buff Colombian orp...... Based on egg size, shape, & color, I could only narrow it down to those 3 moms)
This particular chick may have come from my Buff Colombian pullet x my silver laced roo
Last summer's laced chicks (below) had that sort of face mask.
I really didn't mean to set so many but I got extras from the sellers. What else could I do? Besides shipped eggs don't have a great hatch rate anyways! I also set a lot of laced orp eggs because they have been separated for breeding. I want to know if the fertility has improved. I had a lot a clears in the last batch, so I doubt I'll have anywhere close to 5 doz chicks. If I do, I may end up sleeping in the coop. LOL
moment of the day...... As I was turning the eggs I decided to move the locations of the egg cartons. My wrist wavered & one egg fell out of the egg carton turner. It was a silver laced orp egg too! 
It was cracked, so I opened it before tossing. It was developing & I fell terrible for being a chick murderer. It's common to lose a few embryos during incubation - but NOT that way.
