Making a brooder box

So, apparently, baby chickens (Chicks, man.) need to be indoors in a very temperature-controlled brooder.  They need a heat lamp, but shouldn't have a regular incandescent light bulb.  They need a red light bulb for reasons I'm still not clear on. 

The brooder.  Some people build one out of a large rectangular plastic container.  Some build them.  We elected to go with a large cardboard box.  In the chance we don't like this whole chicken thing, we didn't want to have invested even more into infrastructure.  We also figured that if we do like the whole chicken thing, we'd make our mistakes with cheap stuff (cardboard) so we can learn from mistakes and do it right next time we get chicks.  Man.

The light.  We bought a clamp light fixture from Tractor Supply, but it's garbage.  The clamp really doesn't do its job.  You think that with a name like "clamp light fixture" it would clamp, but it doesn't.  So it's going back.  We also got a 250W heat lamp bulb for it, but despite moving it farther and farther and farther away from where the chicks would be, it was still 120 degrees F from the central point of the light.  If we're going to cook chicken, we're not doing it when their weight is best listed in grams.

Wifey and I picked up a new light fixture and a 75 W heat lamp bulb intended for lizards from a pet store this evening.  If that doesn't get the box warm enough, for chicks (man), we'll try a higher wattage bulb.

Maybe I should come up with a new blog name, but Will Seed For Food For Our Chicks (Man) to Eat just seems cumbersome.


PS
This is what the "Chicks, Man" thing is all about.  I'm sure I could curtail my comments, but it's just who I am.  Besides, I liked the show a lot before the writers decided profanity = humor.