Heat lamp vs Heating Pad

[YvonneBack]

I am so sorry for losing Toby. I completely understand how you are feeling. I'm tearing up just typing this... but I think of this saying often: Every new dog who comes into my life gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough all the components of my heart will be a dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are.

That's a very good quote. And I would be happy to be that generous and loving, though I try I'll never be as good. Every animal I've ever had the fortune to know has outshone me every time. Loosing Toby has a double whammy because he was my Sisters dog and when she died (5 years ago) he came to live with me and its like loosing my Sister all over again.

 

[NatJ]

@NatJ This makes sense to me now, my wyandotte chick has baby fluff everywhere and only wing feathers at 5 weeks old and it's oddly enough that my wyandottes prefer the colder temperatures. I just thought my little buckbeak was broken or attempting to be Peter pan

If you've got one naked-looking chick and the others are mostly feathered out, that's caused by a particular gene, not by the temperature.

When the whole batch of chicks grows feathers faster or slower, it's usually temperature.

When most of them grow feathers and a few still look naked, it's the slow-feathering gene.

Fast feathering is the more common kind, and is usually more convenient to have.

Slow feathering is specifically selected in a few breeds, like Barred Rocks, because it apparently makes the black/white pattern on the feathers clearer.

Slow feathering is also sex-linked. When people are sexing chicks by looking at the wing feathers, or at whether the cockerels have a tail, that's usually slow/fast feathering causing the differences. But it only works if the mother was slow feathering (passes it to her sons but not her daughters), while the father was fast feathering (he passes it to his daughters and his sons, but it only shows in the daughters because the sons also have the dominant slow gene from their mother.)

And because fast/slow feathering do not make any big difference once the chicks grow up, some breeds have a mix of both types because no-one has cared enough to select one way or the other.

 

[YvonneBack]

If you've got one naked-looking chick and the others are mostly feathered out, that's caused by a particular gene, not by the temperature.

When the whole batch of chicks grows feathers faster or slower, it's usually temperature.

When most of them grow feathers and a few still look naked, it's the slow-feathering gene.

Fast feathering is the more common kind, and is usually more convenient to have.

Slow feathering is specifically selected in a few breeds, like Barred Rocks, because it apparently makes the black/white pattern on the feathers clearer.

Slow feathering is also sex-linked. When people are sexing chicks by looking at the wing feathers, or at whether the cockerels have a tail, that's usually slow/fast feathering causing the differences. But it only works if the mother was slow feathering (passes it to her sons but not her daughters), while the father was fast feathering (he passes it to his daughters and his sons, but it only shows in the daughters because the sons also have the dominant slow gene from their mother.)

And because fast/slow feathering do not make any big difference once the chicks grow up, some breeds have a mix of both types because no-one has cared enough to select one way or the other.

Wow! That is super complicated and super facinating. Thanks for those details.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Loosing Toby has a double whammy because he was my Sisters dog and when she died (5 years ago) he came to live with me and its like loosing my Sister all over again.

So sorry for your loss, I can't imagine how rough that feels.

 

[YvonneBack]

So sorry for your loss, I can't imagine how rough that feels.

Thank you very much for those words. I sincerely appreciate them.

 

[YvonneBack]

I find the heat lamp over better to be honest, at least they can move out of the heat of they get too hot. The heat pad I found creates too much heat for a bigger radius. And my chooks were constantly trying to move away from it. And yes they did peck at it too which was concerning.
The straw /lamp combo will be fine. I only use straw and have never had issue with it
Hope this helps

Thanks Kat, I believe that's exactly what we will do.

 

[WindingRoad]

Thanks for taking the time to write all that. Our lowest temps don't even come close to yours that's for sure. I'm well aware of the temperature of a chicken, my main concern was the chicken with no down. Just an fyi there are only 2 chickens in our flock, never more, never less so huddling together won't be as effective as yours but I hear what you're saying.

And how do that chicken manage to NOT grow a down coat. Could it be that she was too hot and therefore didn't grow one. That happens when "people" decide their birds are cold. Just saying.

 

[WindingRoad]

I find the heat lamp over better to be honest, at least they can move out of the heat of they get too hot. The heat pad I found creates too much heat for a bigger radius. And my chooks were constantly trying to move away from it. And yes they did peck at it too which was concerning.
The straw /lamp combo will be fine. I only use straw and have never had issue with it
Hope this helps

Chickens are supposed to sleep at night and they do. They can't see in the dark so they don't like to move around much. Why put something in their coop #1 they don't need and #2 they might not be able to get away from. So now it's not fried chicken it's roasted chickens. I have a great stuffing recipe. VBG

 

[kodster]

I will opine on this, as well. I was born and raised in the San Francisco bay area... your chickens do NOT need supplemental heat in this area. I would be more concerned with the humidity level rather than the heat. The drier, the better. Knowing the fog increases the humidity in the area, which is what truly contributes to the chill rather than air or wind chill factors, you'd be better off using a dehumidifier to keep them warm.

Chickens body temperatures are in the 100s, normal. As someone stated, they put in a sealed oil heater in one corner of their coop, and the chickens avoided that area... because it was too warm for them, even with one in full molt (which also makes me wonder... you stated your chicken is only 8 months old, but going through a molt already? It's usually not until their second fall that they go through a molt). The best test? As the ones found with the heater, it's like finding the sweet spot in a brooder, where the chicks are distributed evenly under the heat, rather than huddled together to stay warm, or are spread out away from the heat source. Your chickens will show you if they are cold or not.

That being said, I now live in North Dakota, where we go into the negatives in the winter, for weeks at a time. So, I just installed a Comfort Cozy radiant wall heater... it doesn't operate on the floor, has a zero clearance back, even though I have it on a frame that keeps it several inches away from the coop wall, so it is above the level of the chickens' access. It is plugged into a ThermoCube tap, that doesn't allow it to activate until it goes below 45F. So, when the ThermoCube activates, the heater comes on, heats the room to an ambivalent temperature of 59F (the lowest it will go) on 750 watts (low setting). But when the room temperature rises to 45F, the ThermoCube deactivates, thereby turning the heater off... fail-safe mechanism. I only use the heater, really, to keep the room warm enough to keep water liquified, not to heat the chickens, because they'll do just fine. They go outside into the snow on their own during the day, so I know they can tolerate the wind chill factors here. I plan on installing a couple of solar panels next Spring/Summer on top of the coop (an 8x12 shed) so that I can use that as the electrical source instead of running an extension cord from the house, making the coop independent.

 

[Bear1978]

I concur with the sentiment of not needing an extra heat source. Chickens survived for thousands of years in the wild and in captivity prior to electrify without heat sources. Now grant it some breeds are more tolerant with extreme temperatures than others, but I would not think being where you’re at would be a need to worry. Good luck.