Brooders and cats, plastic tote?

I have no idea what wattage my heat lamp is. We have an old heat lamp that looks like this http://www.cnpower-cord.com/products/lau05-portable-luminaires-682089.html just older and really worn. It had a heat bulb in it already and the wattage written on the side was rubbed off. What I did is tied a strong string to the clamp, hung a hook from the ceiling, ran the string up into the hook and tied it the a bookshelf sitting next to the brooder. This way it's easily adjustable. All I have to do is untie it from the bookshelf and raise/lower it to adjust the temp. I started it out pretty high (before my chicks hatched) and lowered it until the thermometer read 90 degrees. This way the wattage doesn't matter, and cats can't knock it down. 

I wouldn't think so. It'll settle back down. 

I have a few totes that I use as brooders.. I made the entire top out of hardware cloth.. allows for plenty of ventilation and our cats will lay on top of them (the cats in the house are too lazy to chase after anything.. mainly they just want a warm place to lay for their naps).

I have done the plastic totes  it only worked if the heat lamp was far enough away from the sides otherwise yes I have come home to a few sides melting so I do not use them at all anymore.

How many meat birds you talking about? I usually buy our meat birds around May, yes its the hottest time of year  but our coop outside has a large fan inside it and is shaded never had a problem. We get around 30 meat chicks and I have them in our barn in a large water trough like this one:

We hang the heat lamp above for them and they have the feeder/waters at about a month or 6 weeks I move them to there coop and they are fine.

Now if your getting them now in winter this is my set up for a brooder in the house I usually only have 10 chicks (I think you could probably fit about 15-20 chick) in it for the first month or less and then they are moved out to the barn into the metal trough:

They are in a large rubber tub that I bought at tractor supply for 29 bucks its the largest one they had there I had orginally bought it for my ducks for a small pond but its to high for them to get into.... . It works great lol the only reason the chicks are all huddled to the one side is because of me lol!

I was going to say also to check out the brooder threads with pictures people have come up with some awesome neat brooders that might help you out more!

if you don't have anything around that you can hang a light from you can zip tie it to the underside of the hardware cloth and feed the cord out through either a hole drilled through the plastic (careful.. those totes are easy to crack) or just have the cord snake out under the lid.. since I use hardware cloth as a lid I have it bent over the sides by several inches.. I zip tie the light to the underside of the hardware cloth and can raise it or lower it as I see fit (though that usually entails cutting the old zip tie and using a new one).. one of our cats is around 15 pounds (well.. he was the last time he was at the vet which was about 8 months ago.. he's probably heavier now).. he did dent the hardware cloth.. but other than that he's never fallen through!.. i think since I have mine bent over the edges by a few inches all the way around it helps with his weight

I have my brooders in the house.. so I just use a regular 40 or 60 watt bulb depending on how chilly the house is

I think you need to rethink the idea of brooding meat chicks in the house.

Even if you start with six, in a plastic tote they're going to outgrow it in about two weeks. Then you need someplace else to put them. I also can't imagine brooding meaties in the house due to the large amount of poo they make. You'd be talking serious odor.

I also did mine in a galvanized steel trough, it worked well for about three weeks, then I threw them in with my layers. It was early summer and the weather was warm enough. I had ten and in three weeks they really needed out of that trough. You almost can't imagine how fast they grow.

I'm not sure what the correct answer is for you given your constraints, but I think it might just be best to go with started birds and skip the meaties until you have a more appropriate set up.