Just got the call

[blueferral]

My brooder is outside so my needs are way different. I have a 250 watt bulb and a 150 watt bulb to maintain the temp in there. Directly under the lights its about 110 and 3 feet away at the door its about 70. My ecoglow 50 got here today and I put it in with them. That allowed me to turn off the two bulbs during the day. So I just turn on the red light at night to keep the ambient temperature above 50.

I would also have a smoke detector in there. That is a lot of cardboard really close to that light. If it falls for some reason you could have problems. The chicks will have problems if it falls

.

If you have cats or dogs consider some hardware cloth to place over the top. Will also keep the little guys in. You would be surprised how quickly they start jumping.

Good luck with your new flock. Hope this helped. Please realize I have only had chickens for three years so I'm a noob too!

 

[McKenley5]

Are those doggie wee-wee pads in your brooder? What a GREAT idea!

Yes, I read on here (of course!) that they worked well for the brooder. We have 3 house dogs, so we keep these around already. They make clean-up easy too. I just changed them a few minutes ago...all I did was roll up the dirty ones, toss them in the trash, and put fresh ones down.

 

[blueferral]

Where I used to work we called them "chucks" 'cause we chuck 'em when they were used. When the were used they were "USED". Checked 'em every hour.