Heat lamp vs Brooder?

[Tonyroo]

Those were the stackables that TSC used for a while a couple of years ago, that killed there stock of chicks. And people all over complained about how the chicks were being mismanaged in those thing.

The complaint was big enough nationwide that they went back to there tubs.

Just something I witnessed.

 

[HeritageFan]

I hatch babies and order babies- but ducklings and turkey poults, not chicks.

I always put the newest babies in a brooder in the house for 7-14 days, depending on what I’ve got, how they are doing, and how well they are growing/ eating/ drinking. Under a heat lamp.

Once I’m sure they are doing well and very fluffy/ starting to grow some early feathers, I move them to my outdoor brooder w a “mommas heating pad”. My outdoor brooder is off the ground, so they are not quite as panicky about cleaning/ feeding/ etc as they are when I’m using the indoor brooder and coming in from the top.
It’s warm enough this time of the year that I don’t need to provide both heat sources.

I’ve never tried a heat plate. But I really like the “mommas heating pad” set up.
Search BYC for the “plans”. It’s just a covered “dome” w a heating pad on top and underneath, covered w towels and press n seal for easy cleaning, and a heavy wire frame to make it adjustable in height as they grow, and to prevent cave in if most of the babies decide to be on top of it on a warm afternoon...

If you can’t find the thread, lmk
I can look it up and link it

 

[NatJ]

This is the brooder I have used with good luck. I have never found the chicks all huddled together. They are always happily exploring.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...4-1557530?cid=Shopping-Google-Product-1557530

It says it holds 20. We have had as many as 15 and still had plenty of room for the first few weeks. They outgrow it at about 2-3 weeks. They can get away at the sides if they need to but I have never seen them do that either.

After that, we put them into a very large small animal playpen. It's a zippered portable pen with netting on the top. We remove the heat plate from the brooder and put it in this. We put shavings in it, as well as their nipple water and food. We keep them here until they are old enough to start visiting the big coop in their mini run for a little while every day - introducing them to the other chickens - until they are old enough to enjoy the coop and big run.

If that has given you good results in the past, I would suggest you try it again this time. It might continue to work just fine for you.

But if you have chicks that are huddling and peeping, or otherwise not doing well, consider putting them in a brooder with a solid bottom and a suspended heat lamp (the solid floor gets warm too, so they are warmed from below as well as above.) A big cardboard box can work for such a brooder, as long as you have a safe way to secure the heat lamp. Even if the chicks do need such a brooder, they might need it for just a few hours or overnight, and then be able to transfer to your usual brooder.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll offer my opinion. I have a 3' x 6' brooder in the coop. One end is heated with a heat lamp, two heat lamps in cold weather. My typical brood is around 20 chicks, I've had as many as 28 in there. In the warm weather it is pretty wide open, in winter I wrap it in clear plastic. It still has decent ventilation up high. In winter I keep one end toasty warm but on some mornings I find ice or frost in the far end. The temperature is certainly not the same all through it. I find chicks straight out of the incubator are very good about managing their heat as long as they have options. In ridiculous heat waves like many of us have just had or are having I've turned the heat off at a couple of days.

This is a link to the heating pad cave brooder that was mentioned above.

Mama Heating Pad in the Brooder (Picture Heavy) - UPDATE | BackYard Chickens - Learn How to Raise Chickens

I've never used the heating pad cave or a heat plate. In research on heat plates one manufacturer (I don't know if it as Producer's Pride, it was most likely another) said how they calculate the number of chicks it will hold is to use day old chicks. How many a heat plate or any other brooder can handle will depend on breed and age. A four week old Australorp wil be a lot bigger than a one week old Serama. I can see why a manufacturer would have trouble coming up with a number of chicks it will handle so I'd have trouble believing their numbers.

Did Cackle tell you why they recommend a heat lamp? Some details could be informative. You may find that they don't apply to your situation. @Tonyroo do you know why that brooder or heat plate caused mismanagement or what the problem was?

My perfect brooder is one that gives the chicks a place to warm up when they need to but also gives them a placed to cool down if they get hot. My brooder with the heat lamp works great for that but inside a house and with a small brooder it is very easy to overheat the chicks using a heat lamp, plus heat up your house and make your AC work harder. If I were brooding in the house I'd really research a heating pad cave and heat lamp.

Several years ago a lady that sometimes used heat lamps and and sometimes a heating pad cave in her coop compared the two. The only thing I remember from that comparison was that the heat lamp could handle more chicks than the heating pad cave. She was raising CX meat birds which grew really fast.

@TaylorGlade to me the biggest difference in picking them up from TSC and the post office is that you know when you are getting them from TSC and they should have already at least somewhat recovered from shipping stress. It is always possible for them to be delayed a day in shipping.

I hatch most of mine that go in the brooder. It is extremely rare that I lose one. I've probably received about 80 shipped from a hatchery in three different shipments. I've never lost one of those. I do not get any from a feed store. As long as the mailed chicks arrive on time they do great.

 

[NatJ]

Did Cackle tell you why they recommend a heat lamp? Some details could be informative. You may find that they don't apply to your situation.

Cackle has information on their website.
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/guarantees-policies/
Search "heat bulb" to find the section in that long page. Here is an excerpt:

Mail order poultry is entirely different than poultry hatched out in an incubator at home or under a hen. Mail order poultry require much more heat initially for the first 2 weeks than a heat plate generally can provide. Mail order chicks need their body temperature rapidly and immediately and artificially warmed up to 104 degrees (which is a mother hens’ temperature). Most heat plates do not do this.

That page also has links to two posts on Cackle's blog:
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/how-to-care-for-baby-chickens-delivered-by-mail/
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/how-to-care-for-bantam-chicks-shipped-by-mail/
Those blog pages also emphasize that newly-arrived chicks need to be warmed up quickly and thoroughly.

From the way they are emphasizing it, I think they must have had some unhappy customers with chicks that arrived alive but then died because they did not get warmed up properly.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

In some cases, yes it can make the difference between live chicks and dead chicks. In other cases, chicks seem to do fine with either heat source. It appears to make the biggest difference with chicks who had a hard time in shipping (cold weather or extra days.)

If the chicks arrive chilled, they can warm up faster under a heat lamp than under a brooder plate.

There is also a difference with eating and drinking. With a heat lamp, the chicks can get warm while they start to eat and drink. With a brooder plate, the chicks have to come out into the cooler area to get food or water. For some chicks, when they first arrive, that difference can be very important.

Many people have used heat plates with shipped chicks, and had good results. I see that several of them have already responded to this thread. Some people have used heat plates with shipped chicks, and had problems that went away when they switched to a heat lamp. I think @JacinLarkwell is one who had trouble with brooder plates and had to switch.

Yep, I've mentioned it a few times. I really don't like my plates. I use them because I paid a lot of money for them, but I just don't have confidence in them when they nexlver get as warm as a mother hen, even when I'm touching them.

I always use heat lamps for new babies, until they're at least a couple weeks old, and then I usually leave both in there for a week or so so they can learn how to use a heat plate.

Plus the weather doesn't stay warm enough to use the plates at night until May-ish anyways

 

[TaylorGlade]

I'll offer my opinion. I have a 3' x 6' brooder in the coop. One end is heated with a heat lamp, two heat lamps in cold weather. My typical brood is around 20 chicks, I've had as many as 28 in there. In the warm weather it is pretty wide open, in winter I wrap it in clear plastic. It still has decent ventilation up high. In winter I keep one end toasty warm but on some mornings I find ice or frost in the far end. The temperature is certainly not the same all through it. I find chicks straight out of the incubator are very good about managing their heat as long as they have options. In ridiculous heat waves like many of us have just had or are having I've turned the heat off at a couple of days.

This is a link to the heating pad cave brooder that was mentioned above.

Mama Heating Pad in the Brooder (Picture Heavy) - UPDATE | BackYard Chickens - Learn How to Raise Chickens

I've never used the heating pad cave or a heat plate. In research on heat plates one manufacturer (I don't know if it as Producer's Pride, it was most likely another) said how they calculate the number of chicks it will hold is to use day old chicks. How many a heat plate or any other brooder can handle will depend on breed and age. A four week old Australorp wil be a lot bigger than a one week old Serama. I can see why a manufacturer would have trouble coming up with a number of chicks it will handle so I'd have trouble believing their numbers.

Did Cackle tell you why they recommend a heat lamp? Some details could be informative. You may find that they don't apply to your situation. @Tonyroo do you know why that brooder or heat plate caused mismanagement or what the problem was?

My perfect brooder is one that gives the chicks a place to warm up when they need to but also gives them a placed to cool down if they get hot. My brooder with the heat lamp works great for that but inside a house and with a small brooder it is very easy to overheat the chicks using a heat lamp, plus heat up your house and make your AC work harder. If I were brooding in the house I'd really research a heating pad cave and heat lamp.

Several years ago a lady that sometimes used heat lamps and and sometimes a heating pad cave in her coop compared the two. The only thing I remember from that comparison was that the heat lamp could handle more chicks than the heating pad cave. She was raising CX meat birds which grew really fast.

@TaylorGlade to me the biggest difference in picking them up from TSC and the post office is that you know when you are getting them from TSC and they should have already at least somewhat recovered from shipping stress. It is always possible for them to be delayed a day in shipping.

I hatch most of mine that go in the brooder. It is extremely rare that I lose one. I've probably received about 80 shipped from a hatchery in three different shipments. I've never lost one of those. I do not get any from a feed store. As long as the mailed chicks arrive on time they do great.

Thank you. That sounds like an interesting set up. We are in Florida and it's been very hot. Nights have been in 70s but days have had 100+ heat index with actual highs in the 90s.


Agreeing to use a heat lamp was a box you clicked before they would let you buy the chicks - so no conversation. The info link said that mail order chicks need more heat that chicks hatched in an incubator or by a hen.

 

[TaylorGlade]

Cackle has information on their website.
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/guarantees-policies/
Search "heat bulb" to find the section in that long page. Here is an excerpt:



That page also has links to two posts on Cackle's blog:
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/how-to-care-for-baby-chickens-delivered-by-mail/
https://www.cacklehatchery.com/how-to-care-for-bantam-chicks-shipped-by-mail/
Those blog pages also emphasize that newly-arrived chicks need to be warmed up quickly and thoroughly.

From the way they are emphasizing it, I think they must have had some unhappy customers with chicks that arrived alive but then died because they did not get warmed up properly.

Yes. I read that. But I was wondering what the difference is between buying them at TSC the day they get them in the mail - and skipping the middle men and getting them from the po myself

 

[TaylorGlade]

I hatch babies and order babies- but ducklings and turkey poults, not chicks.

I always put the newest babies in a brooder in the house for 7-14 days, depending on what I’ve got, how they are doing, and how well they are growing/ eating/ drinking. Under a heat lamp.

Once I’m sure they are doing well and very fluffy/ starting to grow some early feathers, I move them to my outdoor brooder w a “mommas heating pad”. My outdoor brooder is off the ground, so they are not quite as panicky about cleaning/ feeding/ etc as they are when I’m using the indoor brooder and coming in from the top.
It’s warm enough this time of the year that I don’t need to provide both heat sources.

I’ve never tried a heat plate. But I really like the “mommas heating pad” set up.
Search BYC for the “plans”. It’s just a covered “dome” w a heating pad on top and underneath, covered w towels and press n seal for easy cleaning, and a heavy wire frame to make it adjustable in height as they grow, and to prevent cave in if most of the babies decide to be on top of it on a warm afternoon...

If you can’t find the thread, lmk
I can look it up and link it

That sounds interesting! Thank you. I will see if I can find that link

 

[TaylorGlade]

Mama Heating Pad in the Brooder (Picture Heavy) - UPDATE | BackYard Chickens - Learn How to Raise Chick

Thank you!