There are a lot of different ways to provide heat. I use heat lamps but heating pads, emitters, heat plates, and other methods can work fine. They all have their benefits and limitations. Regardless of what you use to provide heat, your goal is to have one spot that stays warm enough in the coolest temperatures and a spot that stays cool enough in the warmest temperatures. Whether you brood inside your climate-controlled house, in an attached garage with fairly warm temperatures, or in the coop where you can get a big temperature swing will influence this. The size of the brooder can be pretty important too. Good ventilation up high can help a lot.
You have four chicks so you might be tempted to use a pretty small brooder, that can make it a bit more difficult to use a heat lamp but maybe not for a heat plate or heating pad. You are in Florida so you won’t be seeing the really cold temperatures many of us see this time of year. The more you can tell us about what you plan the better we can tailor an answer for your specific situation.
I use a heat lamp and my 3’ x 6’ brooder is in the coop. I sometimes have chicks in there with outside temperatures well below freezing. Sometimes I brood in the middle of summer where the nighttime temperatures don’t drop below the upper 70’s on a cool night. I use different wattage bulbs and prepare the brooder differently for those different conditions. My worst condition is in the spring where I might have a night well below freezing but a couple of days later it can be well into the 70’s.
So tell us what time of year you plan to brood, what you plan to use as a brooder, and where it will be. We can try to help you come up with a good plan but right now I don’t have nearly enough to go on.
