At what age do chicks no longer need a light at night?

[jloftin60]

I have found a ceramic heat bulb that puts out heat, but no light.
Do I need to let the chicks (3 wks. old) get on schedule with the sun, or do I need to supplement some light at night?

John

 

[shelleyd2008]

They don't really ever need light at night, it's just the heat bulbs put out light and heat. I would use a regular heater if I had one. The lack of light is probably better for them, as too much light can cause pecking.

 

[Chicken Woman]

Using a red heat light will calm them and keep them from pecking one another.

 

[Guinea Goonie]

The ceramic coil really works well. As long as they are in a place that has sunlight in the daytime. If not, you will need a light source during the day. The red heat lamps work at night, but they do soak up the meter reader. If i could find a 100 watt red (not colored) heat lamp, I would change out all my 250 lamps. I use the coils when the chicks are in the house. Then when they go to the nursery (outside port. building), they get the white lights.
I have a quartz heater in the building and the temp. stay at about 60 degrees give or take 10 degrees. If you look at the table for a 5 week old chick you get.... 95,90,85,80, 75 for 5 weeks and the next week it is 70 degrees. So really 60 under a heat lamp is pretty good. I leave the lamps on for two weeks and then they are turned off. The quartz heater is always on and the port. building has a window. At 7-8 weeks a good temp is 60 degrees and the guineas are usually finding their voices by then. I can identify who the females are too. The chickens are fully feathered by then. I wait until the chickens get to about 3-4 pounds (standards) and then they go to the main barn.

 

[Mack1946]

how hot is too hot for chicks.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

I use non-lightbased heat snd a natural day/night cycle from day one, they dont "need" a light at night at any point.....chicks raised by a hen are on a natural light cycle from hatch

 

[Trevorusn]

So my chicks keep pecking the side of my chick corral. I use a heat lamp and have it on all the time. Being 4 are about 1-2 weeks old and 4 are about 3 weeks, would the constant light be causing them to peck at the corral wall??

 

[5GodsDown]

We used a red heat lamp the first two nights because our heat plate hadn't arrived yet. The chicks are now almost a week old and at night they are in complete darkness. We have a little red light attached to the cage we can turn on if they would start pecking at each other the next few weeks