Baby gate over brooder?

[chickenana707]

Is a metal baby gate over the top of my brooder, with a heat lamp hovering just a few inches above it - safe? I know it’s not hardware cloth or chicken wire - I’m trying use what I have around the house. Anyone else use a metal gate?

 

[jwcarlson]

It's possibly safe, but I am extremely leery of heat lamps personally. Though I do use them depending on situation. If it's nice enough outside, I just use heat plates. If it's dipping down really cold, I will put a heat lamp on to warm the space within the brooder enclosures I use.

I would think anything metal should be "safe", but be careful with whatever coatings might be on the metal. Some paint might want to burn that close to a heat lamp.

I don't use a heat lamp in the house ever. If you're going to brood any amount of chicks more than one time, I'd really suggest a heat plate personally. They seem to be getting more and more available. Our local farm stores sell them now and it seems like I see them on Facebook Marketplace fairly frequently.

 

[nuthatched]

How old are your chicks?

 

[jwcarlson]

How old are your chicks?

Now... 5 weeks. But they have been fine down to 0 degrees outside with heat plates at ~3 weeks, 4'x4' brooder wrapped in plastic, AND a heat lap running. That heat lamp probably keeps the brooder area at 40 or 50 degrees with a piece of plywood covering about half of the top. They've been outside since about two weeks old. Hatched Feb 20, moved outside March 8. We've had some decent cold and also had a blizzard that dropped about 8" of snow that blew all over inside there. Didn't bother the chicks at all with some plywood over the top just to make sure little or nothing blew in. Here's the weather since I moved them outside, not a perfect depiction as our lows are 3-5 degrees lower than the ones listed here because of the way our property sits. For example, the low on the 16th at our house was maybe 1 degree:

This is the best picture I have of my setup. This brooder is inside a hardware clothed and covered run. Once the chicks are a little bigger (like for the last week now), I prop the front of this pen up on 2x8s and give them access to the ~14x14 run, but still giving them a place to be out of the wind and warm up. They've been out in the mornings in the mid-20s before the sun comes up when I'm walking down to do chores. They were 4 weeks old then. They cluster up under the heat plate at night (bigger than the one pictured now). There's 16 chicks in there. Haven't run the heat lamp for 10 days or so now.

If you can brood them inside for two weeks it makes a huge difference in their hardiness (in my experience). When I first started with chickens 8 years ago I babied them way more than needed. They seem to harden off pretty well and are pretty smart about regulating their temperatures.

 

[debid]

Is a metal baby gate over the top of my brooder, with a heat lamp hovering just a few inches above it - safe? I know it’s not hardware cloth or chicken wire - I’m trying use what I have around the house. Anyone else use a metal gate?

Looking at the baby gates that we keep for visiting dogs... I have one with ~1.5" squares that would not stop a rat or rat snake from entering but would keep the chicks from flying out. Snakes are out now so I wouldn't personally trust that to be enough outdoors or in my garage but it would be better than no top at all.