Kick the Heat Lamp: Better, Safer, and Healthier Options to Heat Your Brooder!

Excellent resource. I will be getting some babies during November and this was very helpful. I've read bad things about the plates but they never said you need to use it indoors for proper use. Makes sense and I will only have 5 chicks so it should work fine

I totally disagree with this article.
My family members are all chick farmers and use Infrared heat lamps for 20 years.
Farmers caused fire from IR lamps because they used Chinese cheap brand lamps.
My family members are all using Korean brand(Heat Plus) lamps (250W, 375W). It is well made brand with long-lasting, and no issue. As far as I know, they are the only IR lamp manufacturer in south Korea having 30 years experience.

I am getting ready to build my new coop (once I finish building my house ) and i have been researching brooder ideas because I hate the idea of the heat lamp. so thank you. I love the idea of the heat plate.

Thank you so much for posting this article! I had no idea that heat lamps were so bad! I will be sure to use one of the options you provided next batch of chicks!

Love this piece with tons of information

Great idea with the reptile ceramic bulb. Never thought of that one! Thank you!

I’m not a broody coop fan. I much prefer to let a hen do what they’ve been doing for centuries.
This article had some very good advice. It’s got balance and is well written.

Great article introducing choices. I had no idea the red bulb did so much damage.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I will be doing some research before my next hatchlings are due.

As I am incubating eggs currently this article was a very great help! Thank you!!! I will definitely be looking into some of the ideas!

Nice article! I love Mama’s heating pad. Will never use a heat lamp again.

This article is clearly written. Links with more information are provided for the newer alternatives. It's super helpful! We'll be abandoning the heat lamps the next time we have chicks to raise.

What a great article! I'm so grateful to have happened upon and read it.

After not having chickens since childhood and finally moving to a new property where we could easily have lots of chickens, I got my first batch of 28 pretty little ladies. I knew I didn't want to use a typical heat lamp due to some of the issues you mentioned (and feel so enlightened by the others you'd mentioned that I hadn't realized!) so I purchased a couple of ceramic heat emitting bulbs. Still being paranoud, I rigged it to be foolproof... Wrong!

Despite clamping the light into the brooder and hanging it from a rope and s-hook and putting a window screen over the browser to catch it "just in case", all my efforts were in vain. I believe a frisky gal must have flown up, hit the screen which bumped the light and all avalanched into the brooder. It could have been that way ten minutes or as much as an hour when I found it. All babies were huddled in the opposite corner of the brooder and the thermometer that landed under the lamp said 120º (though they were touching so I'm sure it was a false reading). None the less, the pine shavings smelled and felt hot. All girls lived and nothing burned BUT had that happened in the middle of the night it could have been a totally different story and we could have lost our girls and our tiny cabin. Having no income while we're starting our farm I thought the heat plates were too expensive. Wrong again. We now have two and they're worth every penny. We just got another batch of babies (hatched Monday) and they already seem happier and healthier.

I'd never heard of a wool hen and am definitely going to do that too. You're an amazing wealth of knowledge and I'm so grateful to you.