Brooding

Electric Heater for Brooding

Baby chicks can’t regulate their temperature for the first 5 days of their life. Its only at 2 weeks of age that their thermoregulation will be well developed. This is the reason that we supply an external source of heat. There are two types of brooding in gamebirds.

The first type is the natural method or hen brooding, it has an advantage for the instinct development of the young chick. The disadvantage would be that you won’t be able to maximize your hen for breeding if she has to brood her chicks. The danger also of this method is that the hen may be harboring disease causing micro-organisms that may be passed on to the chicks.

The second type is the artificial method, and the most common way is by using an incandescent bulb. The rule of 1 watt per chick is the usual standard. My suggestion is that if the brooder is quite big, it will be better to use several bulbs to enable the equal distribution of heat. For example, if your brooder is good for 50 chicks, lets put two 25 watt bulbs instead of one 50 watt bulb. There are some farms that use electric heaters I will include a photo in this post. I saw this in the brooders of Vice Governor Joson. If you get to visit the farm of Mayor Juancho Aguirre, you will see that he uses home made charcoal heaters because there is no electricity in his farm.