Heat lamp help!

[ChickChickHorray]

Thank you! What a nice thing to read! I’m always pretty quick to note that it doesn’t work well in all situations, but I guess I do really push it kinda hard. It’s just that for the average backyard chicken keeper, those who are brooding once or twice a year with 10-20 chicks it just makes sense to offer an alternative. Whether anyone chooses to use it or sticks with lamps is totally their choice - they are there, I am not, and they know their needs better than I do!

@ChickChickHorray, it’s just a Sunbeam X-Press Heat human heating pad. I’m not at home, and don’t do links well from my device, but if you enter “Mama Heating Pad in the Brooder” in the Search tab above you can get right to it. It’s long, but all you really need to know about MHP is in the first post, and at the bottom of that post is a link to an alternative setup. Whatever you decide to do, good luck with your new chicks!

Thank you for the advice!

 

[ChickChickHorray]

Couldn’t have said it better, LG.

Edited to add: Yep, new take on an old idea, and I don’t take credit for it since so many did it before I did. And it doesn’t work well for huge batches of chicks.

well that would be great for us, we are starting out with eight, one day old chicks, so we are starting with a small little flock!

 

[lazy gardener]

Try the MHP once, and you will never consider using a heat lamp again! MHP chicks go to bed in the evening, sing themselves to sleep, and sleep all night. Heat lamp chicks are up 24/7, fall asleep in random places, in little narcoleptic fits, sometimes crashing with their faces in the feed or water dishes... until a few of their partying flock mates run over them... rinse and repeat 24/7. Very stressful for those little babies. They are terrified of the dark b/c they are under a light 24/7, so the move to the coop is very stressful for them. MHP chicks can be brooded IN THE COOP!!! I've never heard a heat lamp chick trill herself to sleep.

 

[Blooie]

^^^^————-Speaking of a “one woman army”!

 

[The Moonshiner]

Heat lamp chicks are up 24/7, fall asleep in random places, in little narcoleptic fits, sometimes crashing with their faces in the feed or water dishes... until a few of their partying flock mates run over them... rinse and repeat 24/7. Very stressful for those little babies. They are terrified of the dark b/c they are under a light 24/7, so the move to the coop is very stressful for them. .

I don't have any of that going on.
I use the whole garage as my brooder space. I use red bulbs and whole room lite with fluorescents on a timer. When the fluorescents go off they go to bed in a nice little group.
There is no issues of being afraid of the dark, falling asleep in waters or being stressed from bulbs or in any way nerotic or not well adjusted.
Its one thing to promote a different approach to doing things but its another to promote something by spreading falsehoods about the alternatives.
There's a lot of different ways to brood chicks all can work in certain situations and all can fail in others.
No need to think there's only one proper way and be so harsh towards the alternatives.

 

[lazy gardener]

This is what I have seen based on my observations. Yes, you are right, in that MHP is not a one size fits all. The one thing I am harsh towards is chicks that are overheated in a too small brooder. My apology if I come across as being harsh for stating what I have observed.

 

[The Moonshiner]

This is what I have seen based on my observations. Yes, you are right, in that MHP is not a one size fits all. The one thing I am harsh towards is chicks that are overheated in a too small brooder. My apology if I come across as being harsh for stating what I have observed.

Its all good.
I agree about brooding in too small a space. Totes are risky to say the least.
I've called them easy bake brooders for more then a decade.
I get away with brooding 100s of chicks at a time, breeder pens with multiple roosters, and free ranging with sometimes 100 cockerels and roosters together. It all works for me just because of how much room I give them.
Too small a space causes lots of issues from frying chicks in a tote all the way through adulthood and roosters fighting or hens feather picking and on and on.