Heat lamp or radiant heaters

[CozyDia]

Newbie here again!

Is there a difference to chicks raised on a heat lamp compared to ones raised on radiant heaters? I read that chicks raised with radiant heaters grow up more healthy and strong and pretty.

I'm considering grabbing an Ecoglow since I feel the 24/7 light exposure doesn't look healthy and I think a natural day/night cycle would be better, but at the same time I feel its wasteful since I already have an okay heat bulb/lamp setup that cost far less than most radiant heaters.

I also read some conflicting opinions about chicks needing a light source 24/7 for the first week of their life or so. What are your guys thoughts and experiences?

 

[Elmcnam]

I prefer radiant heaters. The only disadvantage is the room they take up in the brooder. My first batch of chicks I used a lamp in the brooder in my basement. I then had two friends that had fires start from the lamps, right after that batch of chicks. One lost a barn. The plates have a much lower fire risk and are more natural. Also, there are cheaper options than the Ecoglow. Make sure you buy one large enough for your flock.

 

[Carters Chick House]

Newbie here again!

Is there a difference to chicks raised on a heat lamp compared to ones raised on radiant heaters? I read that chicks raised with radiant heaters grow up more healthy and strong and pretty.

I'm considering grabbing an Ecoglow since I feel the 24/7 light exposure doesn't look healthy and I think a natural day/night cycle would be better, but at the same time I feel its wasteful since I already have an okay heat bulb/lamp setup that cost far less than most radiant heaters.

I also read some conflicting opinions about chicks needing a light source 24/7 for the first week of their life or so. What are your guys thoughts and experiences?

I'm using the heat plate. Totally love it.

 

[CozyDia]

Just ordered one after some consideration! Do chicks naturally go underneath these heaters or do you need to guide them in first?

 

[Carters Chick House]

Just ordered one after some consideration! Do chicks naturally go underneath these heaters or do you need to guide them in first?

I just got my chicks yesterday. A few went right under and I put the rest under it. They love it.

 

[Blooie]

Warning….another long Blooie post:
I don’t use a heat plate, but I do use Mama Heating Pad. It’s soft, it’s warm, and it’s dark under there. It mimics a broody hen as closely as possible. A heat plate is similar, but open on all sides. Both work by warming the chicks directly rather than heating their entire environment. Advantages to direct heat over heat lamps, in my humble opinion, are many.
1. Chicks learn to self-calm. In a conventional brooder box or <shudder> plastic tote, with a lamp on them 24/7, if something scares them all they can do is run around the perimeter of the brooder in panic, cheeping madly, until they finally stop in a heap. There’s no place for them to hide, as their instincts tell them to do. With a broody hen, they’d dash under her for security, quiet down almost immediately, then peak out to see if the coast is clear. So they learn to differentiate between real threats and imaginary ones. When I first put mine out, they panic when I show up out there to do chores. But with Mama Heating Pad, they make a beeline under it, become very quiet, then look out and realize it’s just that old lady again. With two days they ignore my comings and goings. Calm, confident chicks. It would be similar with a heat plate.
2. They regulate their own heat needs instead of having some arbitrary temperature chart dictate how hot they should be week-by-week. Overheated chicks dehydrate quickly. And they have a difficult time adjusting to ambient temperatures when transitioning outdoors because they‘ve never FELT ambient temperatures. It’s amazing to me, even after 8 years of not using heat lamps indoors, how little heat they actually need. They even wean themselves off heat by around 4 weeks, instead of the 6-8 weeks of constant heat and light. And I’ve found that they feather out faster.
3. Ah, speaking of light, chicks raised with heat plates or Mama Heating Pad get to have natural day/night cycles from Day 1. When the sun starts going down they fill their crops, get a drink, then snuggle under the heat and sleep straight through the night. During that nighttime rest period, those little crops empty slowly and naturally, and digestion takes place as nature intended. Those digestive systems are still too immature to handle eating all day and all night. Their digestive tract is never actually empty. That’s not exactly how they are pre-programmed to live. Since raising chicks the way a broody hen does, I’ve only seen 3 cases of pasty butt in multiple batches of chicks over the past 3 years, and those 3 chicks arrived here with it. Two or three cleanups and it was over. With heat lamps, they eat all the time because that’s about all there is to do in a brooder box - that and peck at each other. My chicks might grow slower than heat lamp raised chicks, but that’s because it’s the way nature intended their growth rate to be. A broody hen doesn’t have night lights under her wings, nor does she get them up to eat every hour.
4. There’s no “transition” time. That’s that time when chicks raised for weeks and weeks with a heat lamp suddenly are evicted out to the coop and experience massive changes in their environment. Everything is strange, new, and scary. There are shifting shadows, strange noises, and they’ll huddle tightly for security more than for warmth. It gets chillier than they’re used to. And, heaven forbid, it gets dark! That time is stressful for both chicks and owners. “My babies are out in the coop and they scream all night. Are they afraid of the dark?“ Well, yah, they kinda are. They’ve never experienced it before! They’re throwing what I call a first class chickie temper tantrum. And the stressed out owners just can’t stand to see their babies suffer, so they either freak out as much as the chicks do or they cave and bring them back in, prolonging the agony for both when they try again. Chicks raised more naturally don’t experience this sudden terror….so we’re back to the raising of calm, confident chicks as a benefit.

I did the indoor heat-lamp thing for weeks with my first chicks 8 years ago. I hated it, and I started hating them. On April 1st, at 5.5 weeks I evicted them….it was them or me, and I’m bigger and I was here first! That first night it got down to 18 degrees. They had a heat lamp, but every time I got up to check on them they were nowhere near it. They were huddled in a ball of feathers and beaks and sleeping soundly in front of the pop door. Same story the second night, except I only checked them once. The third morning I took out the heat lamp. They weren’t using it anyway so I wasn’t risking fire and wasting the electricity. That night it snowed, and it kept on snowing. We got our last snowfall on June 6th, and it stayed cold until around the 12th. If I’d waited until the experts’ charts said it was safe for them to have even an outing, they’d have been 16 weeks old. My Red Sex Link, Ida, laid her first egg at 16 weeks old, for crying out loud!! I never raised another batch of chicks indoors with a heat lamp again. I raise them outdoors from the start with Mama Heating Pad.
5. You’ll enjoy your chicks more if you aren’t stressed out, constantly trying to raise or lower the lamp to obtain the arbitrarily recommended temperatures, and worrying about fire.

I look at it this way…..if a two pound hen can successfully raise her broods outdoors among the flock, regardless of weather, without heat lamps, charts, experts, books, or web sites, why do we do it so differently and think we’re doing it better?

 

[Blooie]

Just had a chance to read this over…dunno why it won’t let me edit the post but in point #3 where it says that I’ve had 3 cases of past butt in 3 years, that should have read 3 cases in 7 years.