Brooder Temperature Chart by Week for Ghana Farms

Measure where the chicks stand, not where the lamp hangs

Most brooder thermometers hang on a wall at head height, or get clipped to the lamp because that is the easiest place to reach. Neither tells you what the chicks feel. The air directly under a heat source can read several degrees warmer than the litter a few steps away, and the coldest corner of the ring is usually where the trouble starts. The same reading applies to broiler chicks and layer chicks alike.

Put a probe thermometer on the litter, with the sensor a few centimetres above the floor, roughly where a sitting chick's back would be. Run the cable out to a display you can read from the door. A digital model with a min/max memory is worth the extra money, because it records the lowest reading of the night while you sleep. We see chicks lost when the afternoon reading looks comfortable and nobody goes to check the floor at three in the morning.

Move the probe around on the first day. Take readings under the centre of the heat, at the edge of the warm zone and in the far corner of the brooder. The spread between those three numbers tells you more than any single figure, and it changes every time you raise or lower the source.

If you are still deciding how to set up the ring itself, our broiler house setup guide walks through the brooding area, and the brooder setup before day-old chicks arrive article covers the layout step by step.

The week-by-week target chart

These targets are a starting range for meat and layer-type chicks in a well-built brooder. Your house, your birds and your weather decide where you finish. Treat each row as the point to aim for during that week, then let the chicks tell you whether to nudge it up or down.

The chart drops the heat by about two to three degrees a week, which is the pattern most experienced keepers follow. Notice that the last row is a range that runs down to house temperature. In Kasoa, the outside air in the warm months can already be close to what a fully feathered chick needs by week four. The heat is a decision you make on the day, not a fixed rule on a wall.

When you place your order, tell us the region and the box count, and we will confirm the batch details in writing before you pay. If you are ready to order, start on the order form, or message us directly on WhatsApp at +233 24 915 1503.

Reading the chicks is quicker than reading the dial

A thermometer shows you the air. The chicks show you the heat they actually feel, and they do it all day without batteries. Learn these five pictures and you will catch most mistakes before the dial does.

• Spread evenly and moving about: the heat is about right. Chicks eat, drink and peck at the litter across the whole ring.
• Piled under the heat, or sitting in a heap: too cold. Look for a draught, a wet patch or a source hung too high.
• Spread to the walls, beaks open, wings held out from the body: too hot. Lower the source, add ventilation or open a corner.
• Huddled in one corner away from the heat: a draught, damp litter, or a sick chick that has gone off on its own. Check all three before you touch the heat.
• Quiet and asleep in a loose, even group: the best sign of the lot. It means warm, fed and settled.

Two of these pictures look alike from the doorway. A pile and a sleeping group can both look like resting chicks. Walk in, lift the edge of the pile gently and look underneath. Cold chicks are often packed under the warm ones on top. Chicks that are only asleep are spread out and come apart easily when you move them.

A check routine that catches the bad night

Most losses in the first week happen between dusk and dawn, when nobody is looking. A short routine, repeated every day, covers the hours that matter.

1. 6 am: read the min/max, note the lowest reading of the night in your record, and reset the memory. Then look at the chicks before you look at anything else.
2. Noon: check the warm zone with the doors open and the sun on the house. Daytime heat can overshoot in a sealed brooder.
3. 6 pm: read the probe in the warm zone and adjust the source height before dark, while you can still see the chicks clearly.
4. 10 pm: walk the ring with a torch. Count the chicks in the warm zone and check for piling at the edges.
5. 2 to 3 am, at least for the first week: one quiet check. Most farmers skip it, and it is the check that finds the draught, the blown bulb or the group that has packed into a corner.

Keep the routine the same every day. A routine you can repeat half asleep will catch problems that an occasional careful look will miss. For the arrival-day steps that come before any of this, read the first 48 hours with new chicks.

Adjusting for the harmattan, the heat spells and the rains

Ghana does not give you one brooding season. A batch that arrives in December meets dusty harmattan air, cool dry nights and a house that loses heat faster than the chart assumes. A batch that arrives in March meets hot afternoons and dry nights that feel comfortable after dark. A batch that arrives in May or June meets rain, humid air and cool, wet nights.

In the harmattan, keep the heat on for longer than the chart suggests. Dust carries into a brooder on the air, so seal the gaps that let in draughts, but keep some ventilation running so that ammonia from the litter does not build up. Pay the closest attention to the coolest hours. Chicks that look fine at dusk can be cold by midnight in an open-sided house.

In the hot dry spells the risk flips. A brooder that holds heat well can overheat by day, and chicks that pant through the afternoon lose water and weight quickly. Lift the source higher during the day, open the side curtains and move the drinkers away from the hottest spot. Bring the source back down before dark. If your power is unreliable, the heat source guide compares the backup options.

In the rains, damp litter is the enemy. Wet floors draw heat out of the chicks, and the humidity makes a cool night feel colder than the thermometer says. Change litter at the first sign of caking, and keep the heat on a little longer than the chart asks if the chicks huddle at night.

A worked example from a bad day three

Here is a reading we would expect a keeper to see on day three of a box of 50 chicks, and what to do about it.

At 6 am the probe under the lamp reads 34 °C. At the far edge of the ring, two metres away, it reads 27 °C. The chicks have packed into the warm half and the far edge is empty. The chart says day three should sit at 33 to 34 °C at chick level, so the warm zone is fine and the far edge is far too cold for a chick this young.

The wrong fix is to turn the heat up, which makes the warm zone too hot and does nothing for the edge. The better fix is to spread the heat. Raise the lamp by a few centimetres so the warm circle grows, or add a second small heat point at the far side. Move the feed and water a little toward the middle of the ring, so the chicks do not have to choose between food and warmth.

Take the readings again an hour later. A good result is a centre near 33 °C, an edge in the high twenties, and chicks spread across the whole ring within a few hours. The gradient is the point. Feed and water belong in the warm half too, so the chicks can eat and still step away from the heat. Our chick starter feed guide explains what the first trough should hold. A brooder that is uniformly warm gives chicks no way to choose, and a chick that cannot move away from heat or cold is stuck with whatever the floor gives it.

When the thermometer and the chicks disagree

Sometimes the dial says the heat is perfect and the chicks still pile up. Do not argue with the chicks. Check the things a thermometer cannot see.

• A draught from a door gap, a gap under a wall sheet or a fan blowing across the ring.
• Wet litter, especially under a drinker that leaks or next to a spilled trough.
• A probe sitting in a warm pocket under the lamp, rather than at chick height.
• Sick chicks that huddle apart from the group. Pick a few up and check for pasty vents, dull eyes and weakness.
• A failing heat source: a bulb that flickers, a gas flame that drops, or a supply that dips at night.

If the chicks still pile after you have dealt with those, add a little heat and check again the next morning. Do not chase the chart with ever-higher heat. Chicks crowding into a brooder that is too warm are often short of air, and that brings its own problems.

Mistakes that cost chicks in the first week

• Reading the heat at the lamp instead of the litter, then wondering why the edges are cold.
• Switching the heat off in week two because the house feels warm in the afternoon.
• Hanging the source too high, so the edges chill and nobody notices.
• Putting the chicks onto a cold floor with no warm-up time before the box opens.
• Judging the whole brooder from one reading taken at noon.
• Ignoring the night. A brooder that is right at 10 am can be wrong at 4 am.

When to switch the heat off for good

Turning the heat off is a bigger decision than turning it on. Switching off too early is the more common error we see, because the chart says week four and the calendar says the same thing, so the farmer stops looking at the birds.

Wait until the chicks sleep spread across the whole floor at night, not packed into one corner. Check that they eat and drink without crowding the feeders. Check the lowest reading of the coldest week of the season. If the house stays above your lower target all night, the heat can come off. If the nights still drop, leave a small source on, out of the way, so the chicks can use it when they want it.

Step the heat down over several days rather than all at once. A cold night straight after a sudden switch-off is a common route to a bad week four, and the damage often shows up a week later as slow growth. A fast meat bird such as the Ross 308 has little spare time to make up a lost week.

Write it down so the next batch starts smarter

A brooder record does not need software. A notebook pinned by the brooder door is enough. For each day of the first four weeks, write the lowest and highest reading, the chick-height temperature at 6 am and 10 pm, what the chicks were doing at each check, and any change you made. Add a weight sample every week, with ten birds picked at random.

After one batch you will know how your brooder behaves on a harmattan night, how long your lamp takes to warm the floor, and which week the heat came off without any fuss. That is the knowledge that makes the second batch easier. It is also the record that helps when a vet or a supplier asks what happened. If you want to see how we keep the batch side of this, our poultry record keeping guide sets out the columns. Our day-old chicks page also lists what each box holds, and the FAQ answers the common questions about the first weeks.

Questions farmers ask