Egg Farmers
In the Brooder
I agree with you Bobbi, the chickens don't need a heat lamp they are well protected in the hen house at night without heat and our daytime temperatures in the Pacific Northwest are no where near as cold as yours are in Maine. If you look at the top of our coop in the picture above you can just barely see the bottom of our heat lamp which is there only to keep the hen hydrator from freezing at night. The heat lamp is 4-feet above the floor of the coop and we use a red, infrared heat reflector light bulb the chickens don't seem to notice at night. We also have a 40 watt lamp in the hen house that's on a timer. That 40 watt lamp turns on at 6:00 AM and off at 11:00 PM to give the hens 17 hours of light, otherwise their egg production drops off in the winter months. When it gets dark outside around 5:00 PM this time of year the chickens will remain active as long as the porch light is on at the back door, but when we turn that off the chickens go in their hen house. We are only using the heat lamp to keep the water from freezing and have concern about the lamp causing a fire. The Prima Heat Lamp seems to be a safer product then a conventional heat lamp.