electric hens

[tracydaffern]

is anyone selling an electric hen, i have got 12 hatching eggs in an incubator due to hatch in 18 days. would i be able to move them to a wooden childs playhouse with an electric hen in it?

 

[Marigold]

Not sure about the playhouse - a large box with either a heat lamp above it, or an electric hen inside it, will enable you to keep an eye on them much more easily than in a playhouse, unless I've got the wrong idea about what this looks like. They do need light, either natural or from a bulb, and if you use an electric hen this ahs the advantage of providing warmth as well as training them to 'day' and 'night' from the start.
I've got a Brinsea Ecoglow, which is nice and simple, though I've only used it for quail not chickens. With the tiny quail chicks I found it wasn't warm enough for the first 10-14 days until they had feathered up a bit, even on the lowest height setting, so I start them off under a ceramic heat lamp suspended above the box. With the Ecoglow, they seemed to spend all their time under it keeping warm, whereas with the lamp they were out and about feeding and drinking much more in the spread of warmth that it gave. But as I said, that was just quail, and it may be that someone who has used an electric hen from the start for chickens can better advise you on this. I put a max/min thermometer in the box under the lamp at first, as to start with they need the same temp. as in the incubator, which is quite high, and they start to huddle and not feed if it's not warm enough.

 

[tracydaffern]

thanks for the reply, it is a small wooden childs playhouse with a door and 2 plastic windows in, i have previously reared baby ducks in there but i had a broody chicken then so she did the job for me. im just thinking if it is possible to put them in it with either a lamp or an electric hen say after a week simply so they will have more space.

 

[Philcott]

It should work - I've got sheds that my babies go into, but I put the electric hen in a large cardboard box - the box turned on it's side. That way they can get out of any draughts, the box is warm overnight (they will probably sleep on top of the electric hen, but they have all the space they need. They are too tiny to warm up the whole shed, as adults would do - and it would not be good to warm the whole shed anyway, as chicks need hot and cold to grow properly, just as they need night and day.

I have a Brinsea Ecoglow that I use in a plastic brooder box right from the first day, on the lowest setting, and my bantam chicks are fine with that. They run in and out and feed and grow well with no checks as I found I was getting with a heat lamp. At about three days old, they and the electric hen go out into the broody shed, moving into bigger pens as they get older and come off heat.

 

[tracydaffern]

thanks for the reply, i just want to do my best for them. i havent bought an electric hen yet just shopping round for the best deal at the mo. you know your plastic brooder box is it just your average plastic box with a lid?
do you keep the lid on or put chicken wire over the top. i need to be extra careful cause i have a 5 month old puppy and also 3 cats!

 

[Marigold]

In that case, with an open-topped box, you would certainly need a well-fixed wire top to the box! Any box will do as long as it's big enough to hold the chicks, a drinker and a feeder, plus floor space for the electric hen (about 1ft X 8ins for a Brinsea Ecoglow I think.) My chicks are in the box I saved when we last had a new combi oven, its about 2ft X 2ft by 2ft, fine for little quail chicks but you might need an excuse to buy a new TV or washing machine or something bigger!
If you get an Ecoglow, I found recently the best prices are on e-bay at http://bit.ly/GBnpLh rather than direct from dealers, and certainly much less than from the Brinsea site itself. Interested to hear that they are OK from the start for chicken chicks, as I said they aren't enough for baby quail for the first week at least. It's easy to change the height of the platform as the chicks grow, though, and I think it's really nice for them to have a 'mum' to snuggle under. Very economical on electricity as well, compared with a lamp.

 

[Philcott]

Marigold, I do have to bank up the bedding under the electric hen for the first couple of days, as even on the lowest clip, the plate is a little bit high.

I don't have a problem with cats or dogs with mine, so I don't cover the plastic box - the cats got attacked by a broody hen when they were still young, and the dog just wants to drown them in slobber! As Marigold says, wire over the top will be necessary in your case. Yes it is just a large plastic box - the sort you can buy from the cheap shops - usually have a plastic clip on lid.

 

[kegs]

Can someone explain to me please if using the Ecoglow on the link above that has the more solid thick black 'legs', how do you raise it up when the chicks are a few weeks old and too big to fit under it? Or do you then swap the Ecoglow for a heat lamp?

 

[Marigold]

The sides unclick and then you can reassemble them on the higher setting. It's also possible to fix one side higher than the other, to make a sloping top surface so they have a bit more choice of heat levels.

 

[Philcott]

I need to lift the heat pad up to the top level for my last batch of chicks. They all tried to get under it last night, and I found that it had 'walked' across the coop on their backs!

 

[Marigold]

If it isn't high enough for larger chicks you can always put a couple of bricks under the side edges to raise the whole thing up a bit.