Make sure to buy spare heat lamps!

[rancher hicks]

When brooding in a cold place, two bulbs are a must, in my book, for peace of mind.

I'd rather have two 125 watt fixtures running than just one 250 watt for this very reason. They may complain a bit if a 125 burns out, but the other 125 will keep them going until I arrive.

Same principle as in the homemade incubators that use light bulbs. Build it with two fixtures and divide the wattage needed to provide the proper heat. If one burns out, the other bulb will keep them warm enough until you discover the loss of one bulb.

On this note, though others posted some interesting stuff, speaking from experience in Brooding.

I've had those 250 red bulbs burn out, go out, whatever and lose chicks. It's heart breaking. I now use two lights. They do sell 175 red heat bulbs on line. IMO, 250 watt bulbs are very hot and only good if you brood in a cold place. In my office they raise the temp considerably.

In the right place, a white 100,75 or even a 60 incandescent bulb will work, but keep the chicks up making it hard for them to sleep and being babies they need their sleep.

( Now IF there is a power outage, I've suggested using some sort of jug, milk/bleach etc. etc filled with hot water. It should keep them warm enough until the power comes back on. Provided of course you have a source of hot water. )

 

[azelgin]

Sorry that's not accurate. What you didn't account for is efficiency. For instance halogen burns hotter than incandescent, incandescent burns hotter than fluorescent, fluorescent burns hotter than LED. A less efficient source provides more heat and less light according to Ohm's law. Also more efficiently means a brighter light with less wattage supplied, this is why we utilize 25 watt fluorescent bulbs to replace 75 watt incandescent and 3 watt LED to replace 25 watt fluorescent. When comparing light efficiency heat lamps are 40% efficient! ceramic is 1% efficient. Here's some reading on infrared efficiency if interested. http://www.infraredheaters.com/basic.html the new ceramic emitters are 99% heat efficient though this study was done when they were 96%. Heat lamps are 60% heat efficient. Sorry, it's sincerely not my intent to be argumentative. It's just to combat misinformation. As you know things are taught a certain way and the dynamics change with time when the theories are disproven with fact.
Have a wonderful day.

Interesting information. The high efficiency lights supply more lumens, by being more efficient at converting the power supplied into visible light. Simplified, they do this by using power to excite different materials, which give off visible light, at different intensity, for the amount of power consumed. Agreed?
But, a 25 watt fluorescent fixture will still put out the same "heat, or, BTU/hr", as a 25 watt incandescent, when you take into account the heat generated by the ballast, when creating a magnetic field, to change the voltage to the higher range needed to excite the gas in the tube and the heat given off, by the excited gas. It's just a more efficient source of "visible light", for power consumed, as it works by causing the gas in the bulb to fluoresce, instead of using the visible light generated by the glowing filament of an incandescent light bulb.
Same with LEDs, they do a better job of converting electricity into visible light, by using less power, or, fewer watts.
I guess what got me going off on this tangent is when you wrote "because the power is utilized for heat instead of heat and light". The power is in reality converted to a different wave length of radiation, which is more efficient at heating surfaces upon which it is focused, but, it's still using the same amount of watts. Amps x Volts = Watts. Watts x 3.412141633 = BTU/hr. So, they both (heat bulb, IR heat emitters) produce the same amount of BTU/hr, or heat, per watt consumed.
I don't want to be argumentative either, but I sometime interpret things differently than some meant to explain it and like to clarify the discussion.
I don't think this is an "I'm right, you're wrong discussion". We just have some confusion on the application of the physics involved here.