Heating Brooder Plate for Chicks Ducklings, Adjustable Brooder House for Keeping Poultry Warm(Orange, M)

I hatched 2 eggs after a fox took their momma. I was using a heatlamp but it needed to be so high and it still kept them too warm. The red heat lamps have always felt so dangerous to me. I've had them fall on chicks, melt the edge of their tote and just have general difficulty getting the lamps situated safely. The clamp on the heat lamps are a bad design, imo.But this brooder!? Ah-mazing. It doesn't get too warm and my babies seem to love it. It's super easy to put together and the quality feels like it will last a good long time. I imagine it could hold 10 or more chicks, depending on size. It fits into the bottom of a 50 gallon sterilite tote very well. It easily wipes down and can be sanitized. My chicks seem very comfortable and happy under the brooder. It functions as it should, theres no fuss over temps being too hot or too cool. I no longer worry about burning any buildings down or killing chicks inadvertently with a hot bulb that falls.

So far these (I bought 2) have been amazing! They keep my quail babies happy and healthy. Even the tinest quail find warmth. The feathers on it make the quail feel safe but I also added additional feathers under it when they FIRST hatch. Just to make sure they felt safe. It works like a charm. My older birds still use it and we just lifted it up a bit to allow the taller birds to have room to exist under there. The smaller birds just move further back.Cleaning it is fairly easy. Building it was simple. It hasn't shook, slipped, malfunctioned or had any issues thus far (2 weeks of continuous use). My older birds even like to stand on top of it and peer out of the brooder out to us as if seeing what's up.Underneath the temperature and humidity gauge says it gets to about 95-98 degrees with 30% humidity when i added additional feathers and 60% when it's under the older birds brooder which is lightly lifted and has soil and woodchips for bedding. My rooms normal ambient humidity sits at 50ish. Temperature is at 60-75 depending on time of day.I absolutely recommend this over a heat lamp which can have many potential issues. Namely fire! No real chance of that happening here and as it turns on (a red light announces this) and off as needed to keep a general safe temperature. Add a plant heat mat under it (I don't recommend unless it's FREEZING like a garage in winter or something) and my temperature gauge read 108 degrees under it, with 10% humidity. I did that just to see how hot it would get. The answer was way way too hot.

This was bought on a whim on Saturday and arrived the next day Easter Sunday. I had been planning and preparing for chicks for a while, but I failed to test out my heat lamp, needless to say I felt is was too much heat. I was also worried about a fire hazard when I was at work. I came to amazon to see what I could get quickly and at a reasonable price, and found this one.The baby chicks seem to love it. I can feel the heat coming off of it myself, but it feels like a safe heat and temp compared to a heat lamp.It was easy to put together. Seems to be pretty great quality, and functions as it should and keeps the chicks warm.

This is really easy to put together and feels sturdy. The chicks seem to like the feathers. 15 bantam chickens fit easily, at least so far. It's pretty smooth plastic and should be pretty easy to clean.My only complaint is that the heater does not work as well in colder areas. We keep our house in the upper 60s, but the temp under the heater only got to the mid 80s. We had to move a space heater into the room with the chicks in order to get the temperature into the upper 90s.This heater works really well in warm areas, and for small numbers of chicks. I will probably need to upgrade to a heat lamp when the chicks get bigger.

Why did you pick this product vs others?:Easy set up. Works well. Adjustable height is nice if you hatch chickens or quail. Keeps them warm and has the hen feather attachment across the front.

I wanted to like this brooder, but it has some pretty serious negative aspects to the way it's designed1. The brooder plate gets hot on one side and not the other. It is very easy to accidentally assemble it upside-down. If you do that, the area under will not get hot, only the top will get hot. You can avoid this if you read the manual carefully, but it is very easy to mess this up. If you accidentally install the plate upside-down, the back flap still attaches and everything still will fit together, so you will not notice that it's assembled upside-down. A good design would make the parts NOT fit together upside-down.2. The height adjustment does not work. There are silicone rubber washers meant to clamp down the height. They do not have enough friction against the plastic, so it is very easy for the height adjustment to "sag" and the plate can fall lower than you adjusted it to.3. This is the biggest problem if you have button quail: The lowest height adjustment is 4". This is not low enough for button quail. At the 4" minimum height, the temperature at chick level (about 1" tall) is only around 85F. It needs to be at least 95F. You CAN NOT achieve warm enough temperatures for button quail at this height, it would need to be maybe 1.5" off the ground or maybe even lower.4. There is an on/off switch on the power cord. This is a BAD feature and should not exist, because it is very easy to accidentally bump this switch and turn the brooder off. If you want the brooder off you can just unplug it, there should not be an on/off switch.5. It doesn't really get hot enough. Even on the hot side of the plate, it only reaches maybe 105F. This may not be hot enough to provide sufficient heat in the area under it.Taking all of these design flaws into consideration, I can't in good conscience give this brooder a good review. It would be very easy to make a mistake even with chickens and leave your chicks out in the cold.