Posts Tagged keeping chickens

The first few weeks of May brought us weather that was more like March, our daytime temperatures have been struggling to get into double figures. The weather forecasters say that it is a ‘blocking area of high pressure in the north Atlantic’ that prevents the milder south-westerly weather system. This is apparently the same culprit that has given us volcanic ash and the harsh winter this year.

Ah the joys of keeping chickens! After moving most of my growers outside to their next accommodation in the field where they can free range on grass, I suddenly found myself rushing around running electric cables to the houses so that I could put a heater bulb in them at night that the almost fully feathered chicks could huddle under. I was using a standard 60W lightbulb, hanging on a pendant and had te wire hooked over a nail in the roof. One afternoon last week, to my horror, I spotted a wisp of smoke rising from one of my houses. I rushed over to find the bulb had fallen onto the straw, turning it black, as well as turning some of the wood of the house black and almost into charcoal on the surface.

The lesson has been learned and from now on, I will only use the metal brood lamps that have a wire guard on the front for this reason, as well as a metal chain to securely hang them. I will use a ceramic dull emitter element – these can be bought at lower wattage (like  40 or 60W) and do not give off light which is not required and will allow my birds to get into a normal lighting regime.