My brooders are in the barn, my chicks made it successfully last winter. That was the first time I ever hatched any eggs out! Read on this website: someone in Wyoming had their chicks in their barn with a heatingpad setup, in extreme weather. They said they did very well. I got the brooders from the local Show Chicken breeder. They are large @4 ft by 3 ft x @2.5 ft tall. They came hard wired up with a heat lamp. Someone on this site suggested puppy training pads and that worked great. I got a deal at the local store, and that is what I'll use this year! Easy cleanup, absorbs splashed water! Put two on the heating pad over a blanket, they protected the pad. Kept the lil chicks feet clean. They seemed to be on the pad more than under! I'll angle it this year. During the extreme weather, I put hot water in 2 liter pop bottles and put them inside the brooder. I was up all night checking in on them. That is one good thing about Michigan -30 one night and 24 the next day.
Have the farm innovator heat pad for them to stand on, also. It's covered in hard plastic. They seem to prefer the snuggly heating pad.
I think a couple of the Sunbeam King Size will work.
Have some ideas, now I have to think Safety and Energy cost.
I
am the person from Wyoming who raises chicks outside, but they are in a clear plastic covered outside run attached to our coop and definitely not in temps as low as the ones you are talking.
Spring is chick season - unfortunately around here spring means temps that fluctuate wildly from 14 degrees one day to 35 the next. But I'd never consider it with temps to -30 as you mentioned you are expecting. I realize I'm pushing it at the temperatures I do raise chicks, but when those little stinkers go out there it's about 47 degrees warmer here (difference from -30 to 17) than what you are talking about, and the winter is breaking, there are more hours of sunshine helping warm the run, and winter is not in full swing with the prospect of weeks of sustained cold.
Obviously if you did it successfully in the past, then you have hit upon the secret to doing it very well and know your weather patterns and setup. So far be it from me to mess with a system that worked!
However, we do get a lot of new visitors to this site and I don't want anyone getting the idea that I'd normally advocate raising chicks in the extremes that you experience during your Michigan winters. Having lived for 5 years in the Great Lakes region, I know how doggone cold and damp it gets there, that's for sure! <shudder> If the combination of heat lamp, heating pads, pop bottles and Farm Innovators' heat pad worked, then you would far know better than I what your setup is capable of handling. But the idea behind MHP is to keep it simple, keep it safe, and to eliminate stress on the chicks and the keepers, and to get heat lamps out of our brooders completely.
So in your case I would most strongly recommend the heating pad that turns itself back on in the event of a power outage so that if you ever had an outage, the pad would be back on as quickly as possible. I think I gave you that link already.
But please, be safe with this heat combination, and have a back-up plan to any heat that relies on electricity. I well remember being without power for 3 days when we lived in that area and can't imagine how I'd have kept chicks warm had I been raising them then. I could barely keep us warm!
Good luck to you on your hatch! And remember, your dues in the Broody Brigade are photos of your Littles!!
