Official BYC Poll: What Heat Lamp Setup Do You Use?

[MGG]

What is an MPH?

An MHP is a Mama Heating Pad. It's where you turn a heating pad into a heat source for artificially brooded chicks.

 

[The Sheperds Wife]

We use a plate brooder where they can get underneath like they would if they were with their mothers.

 

[Champchick]

in conditions where the temperature reaches extreme lows, many chicken owners decide to provide supplemental heat - with heat lamps being one of them. Heat lamps are a good way to warm up small birds or injured birds. Young chicks and bantams may need them in extremely cold environments. For some, heat lamps are successful because they heat up objects and not the air. Although many are worried about fire hazards with heat lamps, if the heat lamp is set at the correct height and kept dust-free, there is minimal risk.

In this poll we would like to find out: What Heat Lamp Setup Do You Use?

Feel free to choose multiple answers and please elaborate in the comment section if you choose "Other".

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Further Reading:

• A Detailed Look At The Question of Supplemental Heat
• Kick the Heat Lamp: Better, Safer, and Healthier Options to Heat Your Brooder!

(Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!)

I love my cozy coop heater. No lights. And they snuggle up to it like it was a mama. No worries about fire. It hot to -40 for a few days this past winter and i set it up for the chickens and will never go back to a heat lamp now.

 

[Carymcmillin]

I raise meat chickens in Michigan. The weather can be 70 during the day and 30 at night. I use 250 watt red heat lamps and have a wireless thermostat that keeps the heat at a constant. I can adjust the heat during the entire growth cycle.
I have the lights on adjustable chains so that they can be raised as lowered also.
It must work cause the chickens are doing well!

 

[Karen K]

So I use the red heat lamps during the day and the brooder plates at night. Actually the chicks can go under the brooder plates during the day, too if they want. My chicks are in the house in a 3 ft by 6 ft pen. We have cardboard around the sides to keep it from getting drafty. The heat lamp rests on top of the screen framed covers. At night, the lights go out the chicks go under the brooder plates and the whole pen is covered by a blanket.

 

[Tashua]

I don't use a heat lamp.
I use a regular light bulb in a Home Depot clippy lamp.
This one I am using now says 53W.
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This is what I’ve used in the past -I’ve found that when I got my chicks in august they didn’t really need much heat but save a day or two in the beginning & well humidity is Florida’s middle name so there ya have it !

 

[Sheepheart]

On my first brooding I used red heat bulbs, the wattage changed as they got older. The light was clipped to the grating on the wall next to the tank and the hight was adjusted as needed.
during the winter I used two cozy coop heaters for my ducks and geese, which I’m not sure if they actually cuddled up to them but I would find the one in the ducks corner knocked over and covered in poop all the time.
This year when I get my chicks to brood, I’m going to try a heat plate I got December. I keep forgetting that I have it so hopefully now that I set it where I can see it I remember to use it. I set up the brooder earlier because I though I was getting chicks earlier and had the heat lamp set up because I forgot about the plate.

 

[Pullet Press]

I don't really use a heat lamp, I brood my chicks seasonally, from May to Oct usually. However, if it ever does get below 70f, I turn on a heat lamp then. I might treat quail differently, but IDK, the brooder is more like an oven in the summertime (with the heat lamp on). It also is one less fire hazard in case I need to leave the house for a couple of hours.

 

[Sonya9]

I use a mama hen heating pad with a ceramic heat emitter for supplemental heat. I want it to be as natural for them as possible and a red heat lamp creates too much night time light.

 

[PurpleCArTires]

I have a 200watt and 100watt ceremic heat emitter bulb in a "hot box" which opens to a huge brooder area that had a single red 250watt heat bulb. Food and water are outside of heat perimeter. My brooder house also has an attached run so they can get used to going outside. I noticed they spend most of the day outside scratching and then run back to the red bulb to warm up for a bit, the run right back outside (they love it out there). I notice they usually only go into the hot box area at night.