radiant heat

I was wondering if anyone has used radiant heat in a brooder house? If so, what is your opinion on it? Hubby wants to install radiant heat into the brooder house we are building this year, but I had not heard of it being used so am wondering about it.

I used one from Lee Valley in my coops last year. It heats objects but not the air. I mounted it over my perches. Apparently it is cost efficient too.

Sue

cost efficiency is why he wants to use it. I am just unsure how day old chicks and turkey poults would do with this type of heat.
That and we already own 2 of them.

We use radiant heaters in our brooder house, It is a lot like the one from Lee Valley Sue talks about (I think). The one we have is called a Q ray. We use it to heat the entire building (About 12X14'), that way the chicks are warm no matter where they go.
We have a smaller one we picked up at Princess Auto, we use it for the small brooder (5X7') and it works good. We have both on thermostats around ground level so it detects the temperature where the chicks are at.

I think when you heat a building it creates a better start for the chicks, of course right under the heater is warmer than to the edges, but they can find where they are happy and not have to huddle around heat lamps, making happier chicks in my opinion.

I use them in all my coops and the barn. I am happy with them but only put them on when it is below -15. I bought mine at princess auto and Canadian Tire

We put in a 15' radiant heater but used natural gas as we had a riser right at the barn.
It is FANTASTIC! Our power bill is 200.00 less a month and our gas bill has increased 25.00
but with gas so much cheaper it will pay for itself in 2 years. We had used electric radiants but it killed
us in power bills.
The birds love it - they are healthy and active as well as broody.
We have purebreds breeding full time and just hatched our first batch this morning.
Unbelievable - should have done it 5 years ago when we moved in!

I am glad to hear that Mel. Whenever we get a barn built that is what we planned on using for heat. We use a forced air in our shop right now and it really fluctuates in temperature. But the neighbor has gas radiant in his shop that he uses as a sale barn for his bull sales and it is very comfortable in there. Always wondered what the cost would be to run one though...

Hubby is planning to use propane for mr brooder house. I am so happy to hear that chicks will do well on it especially as he has ordered 125 meaties 25 meat turkeys and i will be hatching close to 150 chicks 25 turkeys and some waterfowl this year and did not want to loose them all