urbanutah
Chirping
We built our first brooder. My natural intuition and inclination says baby chicks raised by their mommy go to sleep at night under their mommy's feathers and it's dark. So, we designed the pictured set up with a full spectrum light bulb in the center (on a timer that turns on at dawn and off at dusk) and two 100w infrared ceramic bulbs on either side. We have adult hens, but these are our first baby chicks (we just picked up three - 3-day old chicks today). The ceramic heat lamp on the right is now connected to a temperature controller that shuts the heat lamp off when the temp in the brooder reaches 90 degrees. We had it at 95 degrees, but the chicks were panting (they are in my office, which is quite warm due to the heat lamps). I reduced the temp to 90 degrees and they seem much happier. My question is whether anyone has set up the lighting/heat this way? It seemed more natural so that's why it was designed this way, but I've now read things that claim that new baby chicks need light 24/7 so I'm confused as this certainly doesn't occur in nature. Can anyone elaborate on why baby chicks should have light on 24/7 if they have heat via an alternate source?