Plant light instead of heat lamp?

[Malbri]

Last time(8 years ago) we raise 4 chickens using a plant heat lamp instead of one of those red ones. Is this okay? We have a heat lamp but it seems the plant one would be less of a risk of fire, and considering they are staying in my room in the brooder id prefer to not have a fire....
Should I put some kind of shelter inside the brooder? Like those rabbit igloo things or something for shade?

 

[silkiechicken]

As long as the heat reaches at least 95 deg where the chicks are and have a space to get away from the lamp, it would be fine. I didn't know plant lights ran hot though.

 

[Kaneke]

I was thinking that plant lights were biased towards the UV (ultraviolet) end of the spectrum, while heat lamps are biased towards the infrared ... saw someone on here recommending against using "black lights" because of their UV output ...

also, is the plant light in question, a long tube ? seems to me it works better, with chicks, to have a concentrated round pool of light and heat, that they can move into or away from

newbie here ... is this correct ?

 

[speckledhen]

There are some plant bulbs shaped just like heatlamps, but I don't know if they put out enough heat for this purpose.

 

[bigzio]

I'm not familiar with the amount of heat created by the grow light either?

How did it work the last time you used it?

In the house a regular light bulb would work fine. Simply run a check with the thermometer to determine what size light bulb works best, for your set-up.

bigzio

 

[PurpleChicken]

Like Silkiechicken said the heat is they key.

Lowes has heat lamps that are called brooder lamps. They are the same
size and wattage as the reds. I bought a few and tested them with a heat
gun. They are not as hot but they do work.

Any bulb is a fire hazard. You need to be careful. Even a nightlight can burn down
a house.

I use the smaller 80 watt bulbs in my brooders. They work fine for up to 25 chicks.
The 250 watt bulbs are just too big and hot.

 

[JaciesCoop]

With any light I'm always afraid it will burn out in the middle of the night and freeze my chicks. How long can they go without a light? I get up early so it would probably 2 to 4 hours without one if they do go out.

Jacie

 

[bluehenlover]

I am interested in a remedy for this as well. I have a great brooder lamp, but I am worried the bulb will burn out. This has happened to me before. What about a back up- second light? The question is, how do you give them space to get away from the light if you have two? The way my brooder is set up, It would be impossible.

 

[Kaneke]

I happened to get a desk style thermometer with an alarm setting (possibly meant for babies) with a setting for minimum and maximum temps, with an alarm which would go off if too hot or too cold ... pair that with a "baby monitor" and you'd have a remote alarm which (with luck) would wake you if temps got out of hand in the brooder

 

[bluehenlover]

Here are pics of my brooder