[Viv]

At what height do you set the heat lamp above the chicks? My lamp says a minimum of 20inches so that nothing catches fire. My brooder is a pet crate cage with 6 inch cardboard padding around the sides.

[GrannieAnnie]

As its cold, my brooder lamp at the moment is about 12inches from the ground Viv, with such young chicks, but I read somewhere that someone started with theirs about 9inches.  Difficult to say though when you've got a pet  carrier.  

When I had  a poorly chick last year, I just used a red pygmy bulb inside an A4 photocopier paper box, and it was fixed to the lid, that was fine!  kept the temp just right for her!

[Viv]

Thanks Grannie Annie, I'll start it quite low down and see if once they hatch they are warm enough, yes it is very cold, just had a snow storm!!.

[GrannieAnnie]

If they are too cold Viv, they'll crowd into the centre of the lamp area, if they are too warm, they'll get as far from the heat as they can and gasp a bit.  I don't know how many you've got, but with ours, the ideal is that they re all under the lamp, but there's a small empty area in the middle of the circle, then when the outside ones get too cool, they climb over the others to get in the middle, and the ones in the middle edge outwards!