Three questions on building & heating a brooder

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
You really don't want or need to heat the interior to 90-95 degrees. The brooders I have used were nothing more than a pen on the floor, like a circle of cardboard or four walls of scrap plywood. I hung a heat lamp over it where they could go under the heat, or not. Don't get too hung up on achieving a recommended temperature. By watching the chicks you can tell if they are too cold or too warm. If they are huddled all together directly under the heat lamp then they are too cold and the heat lamp needs to be lowered some. If they are all hanging out around the perimeter of the pen and won't go under the heat lamp, it is too warm directly under the lamp and it needs to be raised a little. It will need to be adjusted higher as they grow older. This doesn't involve a thermometer at all! The idea is just to give them a place to get a little warmer or get a little cooler as they see fit. That's hard to do if you heating an enclosed area.

Measuring the temperature under a heat lamp is problematic in itself. The rays of light heat the objects they are shining on and not the air. Different materials (like chicks and thermometers) are heated differently by the rays. You can only measure how well the heat lamp is heating the thermometer and can't really measure the comfort level that a chick gets from the heat lamp.

This is akin to a heat lamp in a bathroom to keep you warm as you are drying off after a shower. The room can be cool, but by standing under the heat lamp you feel warm. Where would you place a thermometer to measure this warmth though?

 

[Mac in Wisco]

I just wanted to add that the 95 degree initial temp and then 5 degrees less each week is for commercial brooder cages that have a hundred chicks to a flat. These brooder / cages have feed and water troughs and a heater to keep them all warm. These are small cages meant to be stacked and to take up a minimal amount of space. These are thermostatically controlled! They have to be because the chicks have no where to go if it gets too warm. You can't heat an enclosed area (or even a semi-enclosed area) to a specific temperature and then walk away without something to control it.

 

[Irajoe]

That's very helpful to me - thank you. I tend to try to be too exact in most activities...probably why the thermostat on the LG 9200 has me very stressed!

Even after multiple readings of your post, I'm questioning my ability to stay as relaxed as you sound in describing your gauging the temperature...but I'll try. At the very least, I'll know that precision is not necessary - - and that might help me sleep the first few nights after they hatch.

We're pretty excited. We candled for the last time tonight (day 14). Of the 18 eggs in the incubator, 15 appear to have baby chicks inside of them!

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Trust me, you'll spend so much time watching them chicks and checking them 30 times a day that you won't miss a beat.