Heat lamp question

[seabee89]

Kids bought their chicks today T a local Rural King. We made a brooder with some nice deep pine shaving in it and put the heat lamp on.
my question is this...should it be on constantly? Chicks are in the garage. It will get down to about 55-60 in there at night right now. Flip side, I don’t need a fire either. Thanks in advance.

 

[CHlCKEN]

Yes it’s going to need to be on all the time. HOWEVER I strongly suggest ditching it and going for a safer all around better alternative which would be a heat plate. You should be able to find them at your local feed store. They sort of imitate a mother hen, by allowing the chicks to be underneath it, but escape the heat if needed. Almost no fire risk at all compared to a heat lamp, and will be cheaper to run.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Yes they need a heat source available at all times, until they are old enough to go without. However at the same time, you only want to heat one part of the brooder and leave the rest cooler. As they get older (roughly every 5-7 days) you want to reduce the heat a bit by raising the lamp, dimming the power, or swapping to a lower wattage bulb, until about 4-6 weeks old, when they have enough feathers to regulate their own body temperature.

 

[seabee89]

The heat lamp worried me enough that I purchased a radiant heater from TSC yesterday. Unfortunately, the kids have lost 4 of the six chicks we bought. The last two seem to be doing just fine though. More to this chicken raising than I thought!! Thank you for the help!