Personally I prefer chicks to be sleeping at night like they do under the broody. That's probably my sole reason for using a heating pad instead of a heat lamp. Also I've never raised more than 10 chicks at once, so a heating pad was always more energy efficient for my particular needs.
On day 3 of raising yet another little batch of quails currently and it's about 100 in the tiny cardboard heated cave I made from a shipping box, while 60ish outside. They seem happy, and that's all that matters
They sleep in the little house with a heat pad underneath at night. You can use both interchangeably.
