Yes, you are here for help. Instead of trying to make you feel guilty or trying to convince you to just scrap everything and do it one certain way, I’ll try to help you with a method that has been very successful for over 100 years. There are many different ways to provide heat to chicks. They all have their benefits and limitations, there are wrong way and right ways for any of them. But they are all successful is used correctly.
The basic idea with a brooder should be to keep one area warm enough in the coolest conditions and an area cool enough in the warmest conditions. I assume you are brooding in your house which means you should have pretty steady temperatures to work with.
There is no perfect temperature for chicks. They can handle a pretty wide range of temperatures, just like you can. Some prefer it cooler, some warmer than others but they are not going to die if the temperature is off a bit. Too much heat is more dangerous than too little though. What you want to avoid is to have the entire brooder too warm. As long as one end is warm enough it doesn’t matter how cold the far end is. Straight out of the incubator or from the post office, chicks are really good at self-regulating as long as they have a range so they can do that. During the first two or three days mine tend to spend a lot of time in the warmer area but after that they roam into some fairly cool areas, just going back to warm up when they need to.
I haven’t used a thermometer for many years but for someone just starting out they are a fairly good idea just to help your confidence. Put the thermometer directly under the lamp on the floor where it is the hottest. How warm do you want the warmest spot? I don’t know. If you are in a place with constant temperatures like in your house I’d not want it above 90. Anything warmer than that and it is warmer than it needs to be. Overheating them is my biggest concern. As long as the chicks are happy I don’t have a minimum acceptable temperature. If they’re OK at 75 degrees, I’m OK at 75. Your chicks will tell you if they are too cold.
Then check the farthest spot. How much cooler should it be? I don’t know as long as it is cooler. My 3’ x 6’ brooder in the coop sometimes has ice on the far end. It doesn’t matter how much as long as it is cooler. They will find their comfort zone as long as they have a range to work with.
As I said, the first couple of days they will probably hang under the heat quite a bit, but after a few days what you want is for them to be scattered when they ae awake. It’s normal for mine to sleep in a group pretty near the heat, even after a few weeks so don’t be too concerned about that. But during the day SueT’s chart is pretty good. If they are as close to the heat as they can get it’s too cold. If they are lined up against the far wall they are too hot.
Since you have a heat lamp, I strongly agree with securing it so it cannot fall or accidentally be knocked down. I throw away the clamp that comes with it as I consider that an accident waiting to happen. I secure mine with wire, not string that can melt or burn. You sure don’t want it to fall and start a fire or burn your chicks.
There are a few ways you can control the heat. One is to use different wattage bulbs. I personally like the red ones but for over 100 years people have been raising chicks with regular white incandescent bulbs. People will tell you all kinds of reasons why that won’t work, but they have been successfully used for over 100 years. Another way is to raise or lower the lamp. How you do that is up to you, just make sure it is very secure. Another way is to focus the light. If you put that lamp on the end of the brooder so you direct part of the heat inside the brooder and part of the heat outside you can reduce the heat going in. My concern with this is that if it is too close to the plastic on top, it might melt the plastic. If you go this route be a bit careful. Some people use a dimmer so they can adjust the heat with the turn of a dial.
Another trick to give them a cooler spot is to put a wall halfway across the brooder. Give them something to hide behind so they can get out of the direct heat. To me the best thing is to have a large enough brooder to start with. Having enough room just makes the whole chicken keeping process so much easier at any age.
There are different kinds of chirping. They may just be happy, they may be a bit nervous in a new spot, things like that are no big deal. But there is one that is a concern, the plaintive chirp. It’s a soul rending type of chirp, you know something is wrong when you hear it. The regular chirps are sort of random: chirp.. chirp chirp…chirp. The plaintive chirp is regular and steady: chirp..chirp..chirp..chirp, it’s really hard to misinterpret. Once you hear it you will know it.
One requirement in any brooder is good ventilation for different reasons. One is that the brooder cannot cool off if it doesn’t have good ventilation. That was an innovative way to provide ventilation with your cover but it is not easy for you to heat one end of that brooder and let the rest cool down. You might want to rethink that.
I’ve seen two week old chicks fly 2 feet vertical and 3 feet horizontal. It’s amazing how fast they grow and develop. You do need some type of cover over the brooder or they will soon be escaping. For ventilation purposes some kind of wire mesh is a good choice.
A lot of people are successfully raising chicks in those plastic bins or aquariums with heat lamps right now. They have been for many years. They are usually successful, even if they don’t follow everything I’ve said. Those chicks are incredibly tough. Broody hens raise chicks in temperatures below freezing. They raise chicks in temperatures well above 100 F. But those broody hens normally have a lot of room to work with. When we raise them in small restricted areas we need to be careful to not overheat them, give them an escape to a cooler area. If you can do that they can manage quite well.
Good luck!
