Too many chicks

[Shirothechick]

So my mother went a little OTT while buying hatching eggs and now we have an abundance of (almost) hatching chicks. We have got 27 hatching soon and we’ve been wracking W our brains on where to put them all. We have a sturdy wooden pen built for them and we would usually keep them in the barn outside with a hot plate brooder but it’s winter at the moment and we were worrying if the chicks would get too cold, even with the heat plate. I would also like to say that it can drop to 1 degree Celsius at night.

 

[BlueBaby]

It might help people to be able to answer your question better if they at least knew your general area location or climate zone. Different one's call for different step's sometimes.

 

[Pork Pie]

The size of your brooder plate and whether it's a contact brooder plate or not (maybe just include the manufacturer) will be additional issues to consider. Maybe read up on the Momma Heating Pad if your brooder plate is not sufficiently large.

 

[lutherpug]

So my mother went a little OTT while buying hatching eggs and now we have an abundance of (almost) hatching chicks. We have got 27 hatching soon and we’ve been wracking W our brains on where to put them all. We have a sturdy wooden pen built for them and we would usually keep them in the barn outside with a hot plate brooder but it’s winter at the moment and we were worrying if the chicks would get too cold, even with the heat plate. I would also like to say that it can drop to 1 degree Celsius at night.

I raised baby chicks outdoors last winter in temps colder than what you're describing with a Premier heat plate. No issues. They were in my coop separated from my adult hens. If my memory is correct, I kept them indoors for a week or two to make sure everyone was doing well and then transferred them outdoors.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've never used a heat plate to raise chicks so I can't comment on the details of how you use them. You sound like you've used them before so you probably know all that. One of my concerns would be what Pork Pie mentioned, the capacity. How many chicks can that one heat plate handle. You might contact the manufacturer about that.

I have raised chicks outside in temperature well below freezing using heat lamps. Heating pads are pretty popular on this forum, and yes they are also used outside in below freezing weather. There are tricks to setting any of these up so they work but if you learn those they can all work.

One method I do not see mentioned on here very often but good for a large number of chicks outside is the hover. You can search Google on it if you wish. The idea is that you build a shallow box and turn it upside down. Heat gets trapped under there. Even a relatively small amount under there can keep a lot of chicks warm. You do have to adjust the height occasionally.

The basic idea is to have one spot warm enough in the coolest temperatures and another spot cool enough in the warmest temperatures. That way they can go warm up when they need to. That is a bit more challenging outside where I've had temperatures go from well below freezing to in the 70's Fahrenheit in less than two days. I'm sure you can manage as long as that heat plate can handle enough chicks.

In those temperatures you don't have to worry about keeping water thawed. That can be an issue brooding outside.