Mama Heating Pad in the Brooder (Picture Heavy) - UPDATE

[Beekissed]

LOVE that log! I remember now....forgive me my tired old brain, it ain't what it used to be. Wouldn't that log make a great brooder cave? Could bungee the heating pad up under and not give a worry about any perching on top..they could poo all they wanna.

 

[Blooie]

LOVE that log! I remember now....forgive me my tired old brain, it ain't what it used to be. Wouldn't that log make a great brooder cave? Could bungee the heating pad up under and not give a worry about any perching on top..they could poo all they wanna.

Ken said the same thing!

 

[MyTMo]

Thank you for posting this Blooie. I am going to make this for my chicks coming at then end of this week. This is such a wonderful idea!

 

[lazy gardener]

Chicks survived their first night camping out. I had to go out and shove them under the heating pad several times. Then, they complained for quite a while. The last time I went out to check on them, they were quiet. I shoved my hand inside, and it was toasty warm, felt a bunch of little warm fluff balls. Setting was maxed out at #6 last night, and low temp this morning was 28*. I went out before 6AM to check on them. They were all tucked in, but came out as soon as they heard me b/c their feed dish was low last night. It's fun to watch them pop out of the cave. Reminds me of toast popping out of a toaster that has the spring wound too tight! They had a snack, raced around a bit, then went back inside. I only had to tuck one in. That's the most charming one, and, I'm guessing that it's a roo.

 

[aart]

Chicks survived their first night camping out. I had to go out and shove them under the heating pad several times. Then, they complained for quite a while. I went out before 6AM to check on them. They were all tucked in, but came out as soon as they heard me b/c their feed dish was low last night. It's fun to watch them pop out of the cave. Reminds me of toast popping out of a toaster that has the spring wound too tight! They had a snack, raced around a bit, then went back inside. I only had to tuck one in. That's the most charming one, and, I'm guessing that it's a roo.

I think this is why they call the chicken door on a coop a 'pop' door!

 

[lazy gardener]

I think this is why they call the chicken door on a coop a 'pop' door!

 

[SCOdoubleT]

Wow! Great idea & great thread!
I may have missed this when reading through this thread, but does anyone have an idea on how much electricity is used for the heating pad vs. heating lamp?
I'd have to imagine the heating pad uses much less, which would save money, too, but not sure.

Good stuff!

 

[Blooie]

Wow! Great idea & great thread!
I may have missed this when reading through this thread, but does anyone have an idea on how much electricity is used for the heating pad vs. heating lamp?
I'd have to imagine the heating pad uses much less, which would save money, too, but not sure.

Good stuff!

@SCOdoubleT Thanks. This has worked so well for me that I'm totally sold. I don't have a clue how much electricity it uses vs a heat lamp. I figure no matter what I'm going to be using some kind of heat source on for chicks regardless of how much electricity it uses, so I confess I wasn't even curious about the difference.

 

[dheltzel]

Wow! Great idea & great thread!
I may have missed this when reading through this thread, but does anyone have an idea on how much electricity is used for the heating pad vs. heating lamp?
I'd have to imagine the heating pad uses much less, which would save money, too, but not sure.

Good stuff!

The heating pad I'm using is 50 watt. In the conventional setups I often use 60 or 100 watt bulbs, though I've had to start switching to 125 watt heat lamps because our gov't decided I'd save electric by making it harder to get the regular incandescent bulbs, forcing me to use higher wattage ones (??).

Those are the raw numbers, in practice, I usually use a desktop dimmer on the heat lamps to reduce their wattage, and the heating pads have a thermostat that means it is not running at 50 watts all the time, so the actual electric usage is not easy to compute, but I think it's safe to say the usage is less with the heating pad type brooding.

 

[aart]

Wow! Great idea & great thread!
I may have missed this when reading through this thread, but does anyone have an idea on how much electricity is used for the heating pad vs. heating lamp?
I'd have to imagine the heating pad uses much less, which would save money, too, but not sure.

Good stuff!

I do
I 'measure things'..... as my friend Bo says.

I have a Kill- A-Watt device that the heating pad is plugged into, here's the data so far on this batch of chicks.
Chicks are 17 days old.
311 hours and 10.03 KWH are what the device has recorded thus far.
The wattage meter readout fluctuates between 121W and 4W, I figure the 121 is when the heating element is on and the 4 is just to power the indicator light on the pads digital control.
I stared the heating pad on the highest setting(6 of 6) and have turned it down in increments so it's on 4 now......
.....not sure if the highest wattage draw is higher when pad is on higher setting, I doubt it.

Compare that to a 250W or 125W heat bulb running constantly.

You can use a white or red incandescent light controlled for heat output with a dimmer extension cord and it might still cost less than the heating pad, but you lose the darkness(and resulting quiet and calmness) aspect which to me is important and one of the main reason for using a heating pad over any kind of light for chick heat.