Does my heat lamp need to be red?

[Hopefulloflove]

I purchased a heat lamp and bulb and tractor supply. It's not red though, does it need to be red?

Thanks!

 

[Gerry2011]

I have never had a red bulb, but my understanding is that it prevents the chicks from pecking each other. If that's not right someone please correct me.

 

[Katy]

Red lights are more calming to them and don't bother them at night so much.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Red or white, it doesn't matter. I prefer a frosted bulb myself, but that may not matter either.

What does matter is that you don't over-heat them or over-crowd them. Feather picking and cannibalism are mostly problems stemming from over-crowding or using the wrong feed.

 

[Hopefulloflove]

Ok...the feed I bought is Dumor chick starter..is that ok?

 

[coalroadcabin]

I'm totally new to being owned by chickens but this is what I've found so far - in the summer a heat lamp is over-kill.

My chicks are in a spare bedroom (no air conditioner) and the room temp is running about 84 degrees. Yesterday a heat lamp made the brooder way too hot no matter how high I hung it above the brooder. So, I just put in plain old lightbulbs (frosted incandescent) starting with 100 W and working my way down to 25 W until I got the temp in the brooder to a nice toasty 95 degrees. When I put the chicks in they all hung out nicely spaced under the light to sleep and ran around the brooder checking things out. Last night the white light didn't seem to keep them up or stress them out any.

(But, I've only got about 24 hours experience so please take what I say with a large grain of salt!)

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Quote:
So long as it's fresh and has been properly stored it's fine. The bottom seam of the bag ought to have the production date on it. If the feed is clumpy, webby, or weevily take it back.

 

[Spoiled1_629]

I bought the same starter feed. I sure hope it is okay!! LOL

 

[off-grid hen]

I used a brinsea ecoglow brooder (a little upside-down heating pad) instead of a heat lamp. I also used dumor unmedicated chick starter. I had no losses.

 

[KaitlynChick55]

We had a little problelm with a bulb that wasn't red, they seemed to peck at eachother alot, and at one point, one of the chicks' back was pecked and bleeding so i had to separate her, and we got a red bulb and they seemed to calm down and they stopped pecking eachother.