scared to use heat lamp

[Minelson]

I'm getting things ready for Gretta and her baby when she delivers in Nov/Dec. I did get a heat lamp because it's sure to be cold. I have never done this before...I have fears about using a heat lamp in my barn with all the hay and straw. I am a fanatic about fire and this really disturbs me. Can anyone help me out with more information on using these? How hot do they get? What is the safest way to use it? Should I even use it at all or is there a better, safer way to keep the baby warm? I'm in South Dakota....can get VERY cold.
Thank you!

[simplyflow]

The heat lamps do get fire starting hot! I don't think I would use them around my goats because every time I think they can't or won't do something they prove me wrong...I do know that people have used hot water bottles to keep the kids warm if needed. I think some have used two liter bottles. Maybe there will be twins and they'll snuggle together!

I'm sure someone will come along shortly and give more details and options other than the heat lamp!

Congrats in advance for your baby(ies)!

[fishhead]

I thought about this as I tossed and turned last night.

Instead of risking a fire with electric heat what about using a large flat container like is used to collect oil when doing oil changes? The ones I've seen have lids and hold several gallons. They've also got a handle. A person could bury one in insulating straw and the kids could lie on top.

There must be other plastic containers that could be used. Even a 5 gallon pail with secure lid buried in the straw would give off heat for a few hours.

[Blossomgapfarm]

I am the friend of a friend who had a large dog breeding operation that burned to the ground day before yesterday. She lost all of her puppy litters (including 25 English Bull Dog puppies) and about 1/2 of her breeding stock. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of animals, buildings, farm equipment, medications, food and supplies - up in smoke. The start of the fire - heating lamp on the new puppy litter. However one might feel about dog farms such as this, it is devastating to this woman and incredibly sad for the dogs. Even the ones that survived are damaged by burns or smoke inhalation.

The moral - be incredibly careful with heat lamps - they can and do start fires. If you use them, use every precaution available. I won't be using them this year - but then the coldest it gets here is in the single digits and that does not happen more than a few days a year.

[Sweet Goats]

I DO use heat lamps. I do not use them to keep them warm all winter, just for the new babies if the weather is really cold. I only do it a few days, and like I said ONLY if it is really really cold. I put mine hight enough up and I make sure that the clip can not come lose. They can be adjusted to the direction that you need them. I also have one in the ceiling, just to help keep the chill out on really cold day. I don't know if it does much, but I feel better. I know of a lady that had pygmys that put hers really low, so the babies could "feel" the heat. Yep they did and she had roasted baby pygmys. Just be very smart, and NEVER stop worrying. When we become to relaxed about it, that is when we have trouble.

[fishhead]

I've got a metal chicken water heater that is pretty safe. It's a metal pan turned upside down and the waterer sits on it. If a person put the cord inside of metal conduit and secured everything down tight it should be pretty safe.

[caberjim]

We use them on occasions in the cold weather with newborns. I don't trust the clips. I use the clips with a wire or twine backup on the clip tied to a rafter and 2 pieces of twine on the cord so that if the clip and twine come loose, the twine-held cord will keep the lamp from falling too low. Paranoid perhaps, but it helps me sleep.

[Gailann Schrader]

NO. Even 200 watt flood lamps/lightbulbs will burn your barn to the GROUND. Especially if they can get to the wires and chew on the wires and put their feet in a water pan at the same time.



been there, still recovering.

I'll pm you a disturbing "after" pic of a goat if you'd like.


My friends get along VERY well with a caged off flood incandescent for their bottle babies. Personally? I will never put one NEAR an animal again.

Another time I had one of those shrouded lights OVER a baby goat. In a metal water tank in the garage. I caught that just as it was catching fire. The goat had knocked it into the sawdust at the bottom of the tank. It was just a 95 watt flood light.

PLEASE plan for it to happen and take UBER precautions!

[Lizzieag]

Unless it is just bitter cold, I don't use a heat lamp. When I have a doe in labor, I turn on a heat lamp..knowing that I will be there the whole time. After the baby is dry, has eaten a time or two, and is moving about on it's own, I turn the lamp off. This is the point at which I leave the barn and allow mom to care for the baby. If the baby was going to be a bottle baby, I would bring the baby to the house for the first couple of days anyway, so no heat lamp needed.

A hot water bottle is a very safe way to provide a temporary heat supply. Also does are good about bedding down with the baby and keeping them warm. I have even seen my buck sleeping with a baby. They are pretty good at taking care of their own..just monitor them to make sure.

[michael1]

I used to use heatlamps in the barn when my cornish chicks come in in February. Last year we had a fire. We think a hen got in there and pecked the bulb until it burst and a hot filiment fell into the chicks bedding. We were very lucky as my wife happened home from work, went to feed the animals and saw blackened wood, hay a melted waterer and one chick with a burn on top of its head. She was able to put out the smoldering fire. I got home a little while later and cut out barn support beam because it was burning inside. It was completely gone from the ground to about 4 feet high. I am still amazed at how lucky we were.

http://picasaweb.google.com/txfarm/B...23298795224306

[HazyDay]

I dont use them unless it is so cold out! But when it's like that the kids come in the house. When I have a doe kid (Jan - late April) I birth the kid, then milk mom, when babies are in a box and then take the colostrum and babies in the house. I put the babies in a large box by the fire and go and make them their colostrum. It's good if you don't care if you have some goat pee on the floor, but if you live in a 2 million dollar house DON"T DO IT!!

I have a cus who lost have their barn to a heat lamp! They started to chicks and the heat lamp fell set their pen on fire. Killed all the chicks!!! and then burned the roof off their sheep barn!!! Good thing all the other animals were on pasture! Poor sheep would have burnt the whole barn to the ground!

So do what you like! I only have used a heat lamp inside the house to bring around a half dead kid. and I still diddn't trust it!!!

[marvella]

i'll add "don't use them!" too.

i had a fire in the pig pen. put in fresh hay. they went in and started moving it around, eventually pushing it up against the lamp. the pen burned down and me and the pigs escaped with only a few ( ) burns.

animals are intended to live out doors. unless it was very cold for a long time, all they should need is a clean and dry shelter, shielded from the wind and some clean hay or straw. i've seeen my dogs sleeping on top of a bale of hay left in the field, covered in snow. the hay puts out a lots of heat for them.

[Minelson]

Thank you everyone..I will not be using the heat lamp unless I am right there to monitor it as Lizzieag suggested....sounds too dangerous and not worth the risk. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and I won't even have to worry about it! Hot water bottles sound like the option to me.
Thanks again!

[Lizi]

I use a brooder lamp over my Boer mamas. It is so high over their backs that it hardly makes mamas back warm. I have had babies born in January in 30 below zero weather and have not lost one yet. I am in Michigan in the woods. The light probably makes me fell better, kinowing that I am trying to help them, but I am also wary of fire.