Whether you want to raise two chickens or one hundred chickens, you may start by raising chicks. To ensure that these chicks grow into healthy and productive chickens, you need to minimize stress. In the excerpt from Chapter 11 of the classic reference Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (Storey Publishing, 2010), Gail Damerow shows you how to find the perfect brooder temperature and light conditions to ensure that your chicks remain comfortable and healthy.

You can buy this book from the MOTHER EARTH NEWS store: Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens.

As long as you maintain the principles of safety and warmth, the possibility of raising chicks in a brooder will only be limited by your imagination. The design of any brooder must minimize stress, because stress will greatly reduce the immunity of the chicks, making them susceptible to diseases that they can resist. Ensuring that the chicks are neither too cold nor too hot can minimize stress; have a clean and safe environment; provide enough space for their numbers; and always find feed and water.

Approaching the chicks from the side rather than from the top can also reduce stress. Commercial box and battery brooders are designed with this feature in mind. Most other brooders are designed for the convenience of chicken raisers, who scare them away by approaching them from above-after all, most predators will pounce on them. Whenever you approach the chicks from a height, the polite way is to speak or hum to let them know that you are coming.

There is almost no way to control the temperature of the chicks, although a group of chicks can squeeze in a small space to keep warm-this is why a box of newly hatched chicks may be delivered by mail. When there is enough space to exercise, eat and drink, the chicks need external heating, and their down gives way to the feathers, starting at about 20 days of age.

In colder weather, chicks tend to emerge faster, but if the temperature is very low, they require longer auxiliary heating than chicks brooding in warm weather. For this reason, chicks that hatch in winter or early spring usually require a longer brooding period than chicks that hatch in late spring or early summer.

Start the brooder temperature at approximately 95°F (35°C) and then reduce it by approximately 5°F (3°C) each week until the brooder temperature is the same as the ambient temperature. In the comfort zone of the chicks, the faster the heat is reduced, the faster the chicks will emerge.

Commercial box brooders, batteries and hovering devices are operated by adjustable thermostats. Most home-made devices provide heat through incandescent bulbs without thermostats or infrared heaters.

Incandescent bulbs are the cheapest heat source for raising 25 to 50 chicks in batches. If your brooding area is large enough to withstand the extra heat, it is best to use two bulbs to prevent one of them from burning out while you are raising. Screw each bulb into a fixture with reflector and hang it on the brooder. The heat can be adjusted in two ways: raising or lowering the lamp and lowering or increasing the wattage of the bulb. Depending on the size of the brooder and the number of chicks, start with a 100-watt or 60-watt bulb.

A 250-watt infrared heating lamp can provide enough heat for 25 to 100 chicks. Infrared heating lamps with red or transparent bulbs are available at farm shops, electrical outlets and some hardware stores. Red lights are more expensive than white lights, but they will not burn out quickly, and red lights are not conducive to picking; as long as everything looks red, things that are really red will not attract attention.

Infrared lights can become very hot, so use porcelain instead of plastic sockets because the plastic may melt. A standard brood lamp holder has a porcelain socket with a few thick wires bent in the front so that the lamp does not directly touch the bedding-for example, if the lamp falls off-or other flammable materials and cause a fire hazard .

Hang the heater lamp with an adjustable chain, starting about 18 inches (45 cm) above the chicks. As the chicks grow older, raise the lights to reduce heat. The general rule is to raise the light by approximately 3 inches (7.5 cm) each week.

Be especially careful with chicks in small chicks brooders, because the infrared light can get very hot and you don't want the chicks to be cooked alive. As they get older and need less heat, give them more space so they can stay away from the heat, or switch from infrared lamps to incandescent bulbs.

A safer infrared option is the Infratherm heating plate, which is more expensive than infrared heating lamps, but consumes much less power. In the long run, the plate will be much cheaper. The panel only directs heat below it, making it easier for chicks in a small area to move away to maintain comfort. The panel has a variety of lengths. Unlike the light bulb and heater lamp fixture, the panel is completely sealed, so it is easier to clean and disinfect.

In theory, the brooder temperature is measured with a thermometer placed 2 inches (5 cm) above the floor of the brooder (the outer edge of the hover), but you don't need a thermometer. Just observe the chicks and adjust the temperature according to their body language.

Chicks that are not warm enough-due to insufficient heat or poor ventilation-gather near heat sources, peek sharply, and may have sticky bottoms or thorough diarrhea. To keep them warm while they sleep, the chicks will pile up and suffocate each other. Piling is most likely to happen at night when the ambient temperature drops, so in cold weather, check your chicks before going to bed and increase the heat overnight if necessary.

Chicks that are too hot will stay away from the heat, have less time to eat, and therefore grow more slowly. They panted hard and tried to stay away from the heat by squeezing the outer edge of the brooder, perhaps suffocating each other. If the brooder's temperature is high enough to raise their body temperature above 117°F (47°C), the chicks will die.

The warm and comfortable happy chicks roam freely throughout the brooding area, emit satisfying music, and sleep side by side, creating the appearance of a plush carpet. For people who have never seen a chick resting comfortably, this sight may be dramatic. One morning, a guest who had stayed overnight woke up my husband and I, panicking because "the chickens are all dead". At the same time, his commotion awakened the chicks, and when we rushed back to check them, to our guests' surprise, the chicks were busy eating breakfast.

Chicks prefer light to heat, which is why commercial brooders have a small light near the heat source, appropriately called the attracting light. A 25-watt light bulb is enough to illuminate about 10 square feet (1 square meter). To help the chicks find feed and water, light up the brooder continuously for the first 48 hours. If the brooder gets natural light, you can turn off the light during the day after the first 2 days. The windows on the south side provide the best sunlight.

Even if the light is your heat source, turn it off for half an hour every 24 hours-but obviously not during the coldest time-so that the chicks will learn not to panic about power failures at night or when the lights go out. Putting the brooding light on the timer can save you the trouble of remembering to turn it off and on every day.

Light affects the growth rate of chicks, so do not leave them in the dark. Even if you have to dim the lights to control cannibalism, the lights should still be bright enough for you to see what is happening in the brooder. A rule of thumb is that the dim light should be at least bright enough that you can barely see the newspaper.

Reprinted with permission from Gail Damerow's Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (Storey Publishing, 2010). Buy this book from our store: Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens.

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