Not completely happy with my new Sweeter Heater

[song of joy]

I'm curious if you're still using these and what you think now a year later. We recently purchased two of the 11x40 ones to use in brooder boxes out in our unheated chicken coop. We had 10 chicks hatch last week and we moved them out to the coop Friday morning. I checked on them just about every hour throughout the day, and they seemed more or less fine: they were grouped together under the heater but they weren't noisy and they weren't shivering or panting. But Saturday morning 8 were dead and a few hours later the other two died as well I'm devastated and trying to figure out what happened since we have 42 more eggs in an incubator set to hatch in two weeks.

Have you ever been able to get a temp reading under the heater? My husband used both an instant read meat thermometer and an infrared thermometer and while the surface temp of the Sweeter Heater was around 160, nothing under it ever measured above 60. I think the chicks froze to death but I am stumped as to why. All of my research suggested this would be the solution we had been looking for and it clearly wasn't.

We are now considering the Mama Heating Pad solution others have posted on here, at least until we can figure out these Sweeter Heaters. We may just return them though because you're right, they are not cheap!

Oh, that's awful! I'm so sorry your chicks died.

I haven't used the Sweeter Heaters since last year's hatches, but when I used them last year, they worked fine. I never tried to get a temperature reading under them, as several folks had commented that this is difficult to do accurately with a thermal panel. I went by the chicks' reactions.

It's really hard to know what went wrong without being there, but here are some questions to consider: How high was the lens of the heater panel above the litter? Was there an area in the brooder box that was not covered by the heat panel at all (a cooler area where chicks could go to eat, drink and mill around)? Did you turn on the heater several hours before putting the chicks outside to heat up the litter? Was the heater set up against a wall so that heat could be trapped under a portion of it? Was the brooder free of floor drafts?

 

[Englishable]

Oh, that's awful! I'm so sorry your chicks died.

I haven't used the Sweeter Heaters since last year's hatches, but when I used them last year, they worked fine. I never tried to get a temperature reading under them, as several folks had commented that this is difficult to do accurately with a thermal panel. I went by the chicks' reactions.

It's really hard to know what went wrong without being there, but here are some questions to consider: How high was the lens of the heater panel above the litter? Was there an area in the brooder box that was not covered by the heat panel at all (a cooler area where chicks could go to eat, drink and mill around)? Did you turn on the heater several hours before putting the chicks outside to heat up the litter? Was the heater set up against a wall so that heat could be trapped under a portion of it?

I'll try to give as many details as I can

We have a 4x8 plywood brooder (2 feet high) that we put in our chicken coop. It was partitioned almost in half using chicken wire from our staggered hatches last year, so the 10 chicks had access to an area approximately 4x4. The heater was hung right in the middle, so it was not against a wall, so there was an area approximately 1.5 feet wide uncovered on either side of the heater. We covered the entire brooder with a chicken wire lid, so that the adult birds couldn't get at the chicks, and then covered most of the 4x4 chick area with a sheet of cardboard so they didn't get pooped on by the guineas in the rafters. The heater was between 3 or 4 inches off the bottom of the brooder floor. We had just laid paper towel on the floor since in past years we've had issues with chicks eating pine shavings and getting pasty butt in the first couple of days. We turned the heater on Thursday morning so we could monitor it all day (and make sure it didn't like, start a fire!) and so it was on about 24 hours before we put the chicks in it. We set their food and water pretty close to the heater so they wouldn't have to go far to get a drink.

When my husband first set up the heater Thursday, he put the meat thermometer underneath and it read ~50 degrees after a couple hours. I explained to him that we wouldn't be able to get a good reading given the way these heaters work and that we should just trust that they'd work. I went out and touched the lens to make sure it was heating, and I could only hold my hand there for a second or two before it felt too hot; so I knew it was working. It was because of my husband's concern that we lowered the heater from 6 inches above the floor recommended to the 3 or 4 inches.

Friday morning around 10, we took a large towel out of the dryer, put it in a cardboard box, grabbed the 10 chicks from the incubator and brought them to the brooder in the coop. We dipped their beaks in the water as we put them into the brooder. They clustered together under the heater and looked like they were ready to take a nap. I thought nothing of it. I checked on them just about every hour throughout Friday, since I was going to the coop to collect eggs for hatching anyway. Daytime temps were in the mid to high 20s. The chicks were always under the heater, not shivering, not panting, and at times some were further away from the group and sometimes they were all grouped together. The last check was around 7pm when my sisters came over for a game night. Nighttime temps dropped into the teens.

In the morning, my husband went out to check on them around 8am, and 8 were dead and the other two did not look good. The dead chicks were all over the 4x4 section of the brooder they had - some under the heater, some in the far corners, and some in between. Within a couple hours, the remaining two were dead as well.

Today, we put a concrete paver and a section of 2x4 under the heater, and after a few hours we used our infrared baby thermometer to take the temp of them. The surface of the heater read 160, but the paver and the 2x4 were only around 60. The floor a few inches away from the heater was 37. We lowered the heater even further, and a few hours later my husband took readings again and the paver/2x4 read 80 degrees.

We did have one late hatch chick. When we pulled the 10 out of the incubator Friday morning, I saw that one chick had died midhatch, but I didn't notice this other one until I grabbed the egg to remove it - it had pipped, and the chick started moving it's beak. So we left that chick in the incubator with some wet paper towels to increase humidity; a few hours later it had made a sizable hole. Saturday morning, that hole hadn't gotten any bigger so in a desperate attempt after knowing all the others died, I helped it out of its shell. Part of the membrane had dried onto its back and I couldn't remove the shell there so I left it. Today I used a warm, wet paper towel to remove as much of the shell and membrane as I could, and as of tonight its doing surprisingly well! However, its one leg is curled up quite a bit still, and under normal circumstances we might have culled it, but now.... we just might end up with a house chicken named Lucky!

 

[song of joy]

The only thing I did different was to position the heater in the corner of the brooder, so it was against two walls to help to trap heat.

At this point, it would probably be best to contact the manufacturer directly with all of these details. They may want you to return the heater panel for testing to see if it's defective.

Poultry Nutri-drench may help the little chick that is struggling. Good job on the assisted hatch!

Edited to add: I forgot to mention, I didn't move my chicks out to the coop brooder until they were about 3 days old. I wanted to make sure they were totally dry, very mobile, and fully recovered from the stress of hatching.

 

[Stephine]

I am so sorry, that is just awful. I wonder if they figured out eating and drinking if you always just saw them under the heater? They might need a bit more space away from the heater, to regulate their temperature - especially in a box that’s closed on top and only vented on one side. Also, if they were just staying under there, that is an indication that they were too cold...
I know those heated covers are all the rage, but I really like the ceramic heat emitting bulbs I got (make sure to get them without Teflon coating!). They don’t give off light, so you have the natural day and night cycle for them, but otherwise they work like a heat lamp - easier for chicks to pick just the right spot, easy to adjust as they grow, no one can get trapped, nothing to try and keep clean, easier to check on the chicks, all that.
I bought a sweeter heater but never could get over the chemical smell of the hot plastic. Also, if you hang it as high as they say to avoid fire risk, then it is hung way too high for chicks. Even their own pictures show them using the heater much much closer to the bedding. I am keeping my fingers crossed for your next batch!

 

[Stephine]

I am so sorry, that is just awful. I wonder if they figured out eating and drinking if you always just saw them under the heater? They might need a bit more space away from the heater, to regulate their temperature - especially in a box that’s closed on top and only vented on one side. Also, if they were just staying under there, that is an indication that they were too cold...
I know those heated covers are all the rage, but I really like the ceramic heat emitting bulbs I got (make sure to get them without Teflon coating!). They don’t give off light, so you have the natural day and night cycle for them, but otherwise they work like a heat lamp - easier for chicks to pick just the right spot, easy to adjust as they grow, no one can get trapped, nothing to try and keep clean, easier to check on the chicks, all that.
I bought a sweeter heater but never could get over the chemical smell of the hot plastic. Also, if you hang it as high as they say to avoid fire risk, then it is hung way too high for chicks. Even their own pictures show them using the heater much much closer to the bedding. I am keeping my fingers crossed for your next batch!

 

[Kruchti]

Learned something new about chick heaters! Has anyone tried the heating pad the chicks sit on?

 

[catballou]

Hi Gary, Fair point. I have not received my chickens yet so I can only surmise that if it gets pretty cold at night,they are going to want the sweeter heater to be warm to all four edges. Also, at least a couple are going to be sweating under that 200° spot.

You put it up high enough so that there are NO places 200°! They will find a warm spot if they're cold and move away if they're too warm. It should be maybe 95 to 100 or so in the hottest spots. I used a heat lamp and it was 4 feet high over them.

 

[BoknRoll]

The biggest threat in winter is frostbite on the combs and wattles due to inadequate coop ventilation and the resulting moisture build-up.

It just isn't always that simple, unfortunately. My coop is dry and draft-free at 45% humidity and when our temps dropped to -20 for a few nights, several of my hens had frostbitten combs.

 

[Stephine]

It just isn't always that simple, unfortunately. My coop is dry and draft-free at 45% humidity and when our temps dropped to -20 for a few nights, several of my hens had frostbitten combs.

I think it’s because -20 is really an extreme temperature. Just like in temperatures above 110 or so your usual cooling measures might fail…

 

[BoknRoll]

I think it’s because -20 is really an extreme temperature. Just like in temperatures above 110 or so your usual cooling measures might fail…

Correct, so this is when you have to consider alternative methods. I don't think it's as absolute as 'chickens don't need supplemental heat, period' as some comments were saying. There are a lot of variables to consider.