Brooder lamps

We've got the ceramic light fixtures with red bulbs*** and so far they are working great. We are using a large plastic barrel cut in two for the brooder and have the lamps clamped to the side or on a piece of 1X4 that's attached (with duct tape) to the side of the barrel. This way we can raise the lamp as the chicks need less and less heat.

I don't trust the lamps to stay where they're supposed to, so I also have a piece of wire hardware cloth on top of the barrel so if the lamp falls off or comes un-clamped, it won't fall in with the chicks. We put duct tape around all the edges so we don't get cut by the sharp raw edges of the hardware cloth cover. So far it's working great. Here's a pic of one of our homemade brooders.

BrooderBarrel_4April08.jpg


Tuesday...finally some nice weather coming... all our chicks are going out into a big corral we set up yesterday in the coop. We'll just move the lights into the coop when we move the chicks. They'll be suspended from the coop ceiling on dog-type chains and carabiners so the lights can be easily adjusted up or down for temp control as needed.

*** We got red bulbs because the guy at the farm store told us that's what you need for chicks because it keeps them from pecking each other. I've also read that if you have red lights, if a chick is injured, the other chicks won't go crazy on it because they can't see the blood as well.
 

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