Well, FUCK.

Back in April, I purchased a Brinsea “Ecobrooder”, because it had high reviews on, if I recall correctly, one of the chicken groups I’m on. The Amazon reviews of the device were also pretty good.

Remember how I had such hell with that batch of chicks? How I couldn’t figure out WTF was going on?

Turns out, it wasn’t just because they made turkey poults look like Einstein. (Although, trust me, that was still a factor.)

I’ve lost ten of this current batch so far. Friday, husband told me he found three or four dead under the brooder plate, and cremated them. Today, I lifted the brooders out — the Brinsea, and a K&H that I just purchased last week — because I wasn’t seeing enough chicks running around.

I found six of those now-ten-total dead chicks piled under the Brinsea (none under the K&H), with … missing patches of skin, all the way to muscle. I put my hand on the bottom of the Brinsea and I was nearly burnt.

The K&H is much more reasonably temperatured — we’re talking easily a 10-20 degree contact difference. Comfortable shower versus “fuck that hurts”.

Obviously, I’ve pulled the Brinsea. Given how many fewer chicks there are 🙁 the K&H can handle the rest by itself. I’ve reported it to Brinsea. I’m pretty unhappy.

Now, the ones in April dying weren’t so obvious, although they mostly died under the brooder plate in question. They didn’t have burns of that severity. So I assume they simply overheated versus died from burning. But I am assuming this unit was defective from the start, and simply got worse over time. 🙁

Mad at myself for not realizing that was the issue, not even after I pulled the brooder plate and went back to a lamp while trying to troubleshoot. I just presumed they weren’t getting enough warmth. It didn’t occur to me they’d get too much.