i discovered part way into my first year of chicks that those 250 wt bulbs are not a necessity. Try a regular light bulb. With chicks you can tell they are warm enough if they arent peeping all the time or piling under the light . I have used a regular light bulb since then-but mine are in totes or in an enclosed hutch. the height of the heat lamp matters also. The lower the lamp the hotter they will be . My cousin just got ducks here in chilly NY. they are inside her house in a tote without a lamp . they are perfectly toasty just in her house at three weeks of age. they are also huge pekins lol. If your babies are moving around and not raising a fuss I would say they are warm enough. We had pekins last year and put them in a big pen in the barn and they were fine with a normal heat lamp. good luck. michelle
--- On Tue, 4/27/10, JojoDVM@aol.com <JojoDVM@aol.com> wrote:
From: JojoDVM@aol.com <JojoDVM@aol.com>
Subject: [CHICKENS-101] brooder heat options...
To: CHICKENS-101@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tuesday, April 27, 2010, 5:03 PM
Hi all, Im a fowl newbie to say the least...I just aquired 6 muscovy ducklings (I know they arent chickens, but chickens are on their way)...they are still little guys that are requiring some heat...however, I live in Texas and its not THAT cold here...its only chilly at night...these guys will be free range ducks once they are big enough to be on their own, so I dont really want to build a ginormous duck pen for them if I can avoid it (they will have the option of using the barn for roosting/bad weather when they get bigger)...Id like for them to start spending some time outside and have a small area that I can cordon off for the ducklings... but my question is: the 250W heat lamp will be WAAAAY too hot for the small duck house they will have access to....it will just be a small dog house...do you think using a heating pad would be an option? It would be wrapped in a towel so I could change it often cause they are messy little buggers...any other ideas from those far more experienced? ...This will also likely end up being a chick issue in the near future...however, the chicken coop will be considerably bigger so the large wattage bulb may not pose nearly the same issues...Thanks in advance!
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