Please help me with recommendations for "heat lamps"

[Debbie292d]

Oh, good idea with the thermostat!

I don't have electricity outside, so I have to have something that fits through doors and that I can move, otherwise I'd have them outside.

That brooder is in the living room.

 

[Sanderguy777]

That brooder is in the living room.

Yep. No other options (no extra rooms, and my kitchen would be a lot less nice with another thing, or ckick dust everywhere LOL).

 

[rosemarythyme]

The issue is it would have to be larger than I want for my setup, which is why I was thinking of the little corner box I have in my brooder now.

The issue is whether the emitter will be too hot to be within a few inches of the wood.

Possibly - but you'd need to test it and find out. Some lamps run insanely hot and direct contact like this would cause smoking if not an outright fire.

A mama heating pad is the cheapest set up if you already have the supplies on hand, and I've never had issue "cleaning" afterwards as the pad is fully wrapped during use.

I will note your brooder is pretty small, which makes it more difficult to give the chicks a warm and cool area. Did you get a thermometer reading with the lamp on, under it and away from it? And how many chicks are you planning to get? You have floor space for roughly 4-5 chicks up to around 2 weeks assuming they have sufficient room to get heat and get away from heat.

 

[Debbie292d]

Yep. No other options (no extra rooms, and my kitchen would be a lot less nice with another thing, or ckick dust everywhere LOL).

We use horse bedding pellets. There is still dander but that cuts it way down, plus, less maintenance as the pellets are good in there for about a month. Coccidiosis can't grow as they dry out the poop.

 

[NatJ]

https://www.plamondon.com/wp/build-200-chick-brooder-two-hours-20/

This is the guide I found. Essentially an inverted box with 2 lamps. The issue is it would have to be larger than I want for my setup, which is why I was thinking of the little corner box I have in my brooder now.

The issue is whether the emitter will be too hot to be within a few inches of the wood.

That Ohio Brooder is meant to be used inside a much larger pen, outdoors. The inverted box is to keep heat in, to make a warm area for the chicks even when the rest of the area is very cool. Then the chicks can alternate warmign up with running out into the cool area to eat and drink and play. It is similar to the situation with a broody hen: warmth underneath her, cool everywhere else.

Since your brooder is already small, and is inside a warm house, do not bother trying to make an enclosed warm area. Just point the heat source into one corner of your brooder box, and check to be sure the opposite corner is cool enough.

It will be hard to get a warm area and a cool area in the size box you have for your brooder-- try different size bulbs and check with a thermometer to see what you get. For example, you may find that one 40-watt bulb provides enough heat. Or a different size bulb. Or you may find that your heat emitter is the right amount.

First of all, I planned to do an indoor brooder box and it's about 32x22" inside.

That looks big now when it has no chicks inside.

But by the time you try to provide a warm place, a cool area, feeder, and waterer, there will not be much room left for the chicks to move around. As they grow, they will soon be too crowded.

Where are the chicks going to live after they outgrow the brooder? If you already have a chicken coop ready for them, you might just try brooding them in there from the very beginning, or move them out when they are just a few days old (of course with a heat source.)

I'd also rather not have a fire hazard in my house.

Anything that makes heat or uses electricity CAN be a fire hazard. Most of them can be safe if used correctly. "Correctly" varies a bit from one thing to another, but always includes keeping it from falling onto flammable materials, and keeping the cord in good condition (not frayed or chewed.)

So I bought a heat emitter for reptiles, but I looked it up and it gets well over 200⁰f.

That is too hot for a chick to snuggle directly against.
But it can be fine to warm the air in one area, where the chicks can go spend time when they are cold. Just put it high enough the chicks do not bump it, and check the temperature at chick-height with a thermometer to see if it is about right.

What alternatives are there? I know the brooder plate, but those are expensive. And the heating pads are just going to get MESSY. Are there any options that are cheap? I talked with someone that said "just keep it simple", but I feel like the possible issues the chicks get from the constant light are really bad (especially the slowing of maturity in hens).

Constant light from a light bulb for the first month or so, does not seem to do any real harm to the chicks. A heat lamp is often the cheapest option, can be fairly simply to use, and can work very well in many situations (metal fixture as illustrated by someone else, with whatever size light bulb makes the right amount of heat). Other methods can work well too.

But I would still go for a bigger brooder. If you have a brooder 4-6 feet long, it is much easier to have a warm spot in one end and a cool area in the other end, and the chicks move around to find the spot they are comfortable. The smaller the brooder, the more likely it is to be hot everywhere. Chicks that are always warm or hot (no cool area available) are more prone to pasty butt, picking at each other, dying, and maybe a few more things that I've forgotten.