- Jul 13, 2019
- 19
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Could this brooder plate be too HOT? (Photo attached)
I'm a first time chicken lady, have had ducks though.
I have four chicks are approaching 1 week old and one chick who is approaching 2 weeks old. I've been using a 250W red heat bulb that is placed about 2 or 2.5 feet up from the bottom surface of the brooder. I have an infrared thermometer gun and regularly check the temperature throughout the brooder and it ranges from in the high 70s/ low 80s (Fahrenheit) on one side up to 96ish and 100 in the hottest side. The first few days it was in the low 100s and I've moved the lamp up a couple inches since then.
I got this plate because I've read the 250W bulb will be costly to keep using. Our electricity bills are very high in my area already. The plate gets very very hot, too hot to touch for more than a literal second or two. I used it last night for the first time and the chicks stayed piled under it pretty much all night and ate a lot less food than what they had been eating. I have a wifi camera on them and they were not really seen out from under the plate all night the times I checked.
I'm a first timer with chicks so I'm not sure if this is normal or if it means they were too cold to come out from under it. When I hover my hand over the hot side of the plate just a few millimeters away, I feel no heat at all. When I touch it, it's scorching. The manual says their backs need to be able to touch the plate but I don't see how that will not scald them to death as hot as it is. I expected to feel just a slight amount of heat radiating off of it when I was millimeters away but I felt nothing.
Are all of the plates like this or is mine possibly a cheap unregulated or defective one? I went back to the heat lamp tonight because I know it will keep them warm and they get up and move about freely and eat off and on through the night with it going.
I'm a first time chicken lady, have had ducks though.
I have four chicks are approaching 1 week old and one chick who is approaching 2 weeks old. I've been using a 250W red heat bulb that is placed about 2 or 2.5 feet up from the bottom surface of the brooder. I have an infrared thermometer gun and regularly check the temperature throughout the brooder and it ranges from in the high 70s/ low 80s (Fahrenheit) on one side up to 96ish and 100 in the hottest side. The first few days it was in the low 100s and I've moved the lamp up a couple inches since then.
I got this plate because I've read the 250W bulb will be costly to keep using. Our electricity bills are very high in my area already. The plate gets very very hot, too hot to touch for more than a literal second or two. I used it last night for the first time and the chicks stayed piled under it pretty much all night and ate a lot less food than what they had been eating. I have a wifi camera on them and they were not really seen out from under the plate all night the times I checked.
I'm a first timer with chicks so I'm not sure if this is normal or if it means they were too cold to come out from under it. When I hover my hand over the hot side of the plate just a few millimeters away, I feel no heat at all. When I touch it, it's scorching. The manual says their backs need to be able to touch the plate but I don't see how that will not scald them to death as hot as it is. I expected to feel just a slight amount of heat radiating off of it when I was millimeters away but I felt nothing.
Are all of the plates like this or is mine possibly a cheap unregulated or defective one? I went back to the heat lamp tonight because I know it will keep them warm and they get up and move about freely and eat off and on through the night with it going.
