Very rarely do I meet a
product that is so game-changing that I feel the need to blog about it,
but Brinsea’s EcoGlow Brooder is going on my list to recommend to
anyone raising chicks by hand. The idea is simple — rather than
keeping your chicks warm using a light on top of the brood box, you
introduce a raised heat pad that the chicks nestle underneath like they
would under a mother hen. The EcoGlow brooder uses a tenth of the
energy of a traditional brood light and there is no danger of catching
your litter on fire if the brooder falls to the ground.
The safety and energy
factors are why I bought the EcoGlow brooder, but in practice I found
even more to love. In my limited experience with raising chicks
under a brood light, the chicks have an odd sleep schedule, struggling
to stay awake all night then keeling over a few at a time for power
naps. Brinsea’s brooder has no light (except a tiny indicator LED
on top to let you know it’s working), so the chicks all nestle down
together in the evening to rest and spend most of the day working their
food and water, stopping by the brooder for a warm-up as
necessary. Our chicks under the EcoGlow brooder seem to spend
more time foraging in the day and less time napping, and they just
sound happier — no troubled peeps at all, just contented chuckles.
There are only two very minor
downsides I’ve discovered with the EcoGlow brooder. First, very
young chicks tend to nestle down under the brooder and not come out at
all for the first several hours. This can be disconcerting if
you’re a new chicken mom and are worried about your flock, and you
don’t get to watch the cute chicks sleeping. The other minor
problem is that within a few days, your chicks will figure out how to
hop on top and will spend some time roosting (and pooping) up
there. As our poop-free chicken waterer attests, deleting chicken
poop from our lives is one of our goals, and I’m not relishing cleaning
the brooder before the next batch of chicks. Still, those minor
inconveniences are worth putting up with to keep our chicks healthier
and happier. We won’t be going back to the brood light anytime
soon.
The brooder costs $60
plus $16 shipping and you might as well get it straight from Brinsea
since no one else sells it any cheaper. The Ecoglow 20 is big
enough for 20 chicks and is what we have, but I’ve read that the 50
chick brooder ($130) will be coming out soon if you raise larger
batches. I’d skip the $20 “enclosure panels” since you can get
the same effect by cutting some cardboard to make a barrier enclosing
your chicks for their early days.
Brinsea EcoGlow Chick Brooder Review
About The Author
Anna & Mark
Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton are a pair of back-to-the-landers who have been homesteading for over a decade.
It is funny you mentioned the chicken litter catching on fire. This actually happened to me when I was using a brooder light to keep my young chicks warm.
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As the chicks got a little bigger and more mobile, they ended up knocking my light down. When it came into contact with the wood chips, it was hot enough to start a fire.
Thanks for discussing this brooder that prevents that problem.
Scary! That’s never happened to us, but we did have an incident two years ago where the blowing ran tossed some droplets on the face of a heat lamp, and the combination of hot and cold made the bulb shatter, leading to cold chicks.
Oh, and now that I think about it, I’m wrong, we did almost start a fire once. I guess I blocked that out… 🙂
The one addition to this review that I’d add after a year of use is — pay attention to the temperature limits. 50 degrees Fahrenheit is the absolute minimum. I’ve read you will have better luck by putting a sheet of styrofoam under the brooder in extreme cold, but haven’t tried it yet.
I use Contact paper on top of the clean EcoGlow prior to use, which makes subsequent clean-up for the next batch of fluffy-butts a breeze!
I hope this helps. 🙂
Kathy Shea Mormino
The Chicken Chick
http://www.The-Chicken-Chick.com
When I had a mother hen with chicks-I noticed that she would take them back into the nest box at night–so chicks under a heat lamp are awake anytime of day or night-so they do not have a regular sleep cycle-this brooder sounds great-creating a more “natural” state-plan on buying the larger one–HHH Ranch
Vicki — I think you’re totally right that this brooder is more natural for the chicks. I suspect that’s why they peep so much less than they used to when we raised them with a light!