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Author Topic: heat mats or lamps  (Read 6122 times)

Ash Field Farm

  • Joined Apr 2008
  • banbury
  • my girls
heat mats or lamps
« on: February 07, 2009, 06:49:25 pm »
iam looking for a 12volt heat lamp or mat as i have no electric on the site i keep the pigs on  i was planning to use a  tractor bartie with a solar trical charger to keep it going when iam not there in this weather  they are due some time in the nxt 2 weeks so need to get sumert sorted  does any one have ideas as i going to be farrowing them naturaly with no crate as i dont have one does nay one have any ideas rusty lol the guru advice is needed

sausagesandcash

  • Joined Jan 2009
  • UK
    • IrishHandcraft
Re: heat mats or lamps
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2009, 09:14:34 pm »
I must say that technically, experience wise, like MANUEL 'I Know nothing'. However I understand that you need a crawl space for the piglets to get away from the mother if she should decide to sit on them! I set aside a 1 foot crawl space for the piglets in the farrowing shed, with a heat lamp over it (the space is rectangluar 1 foot wide X 15 foot long). If you live in ireland I can get you a farrowing crate although I don't really believe in them myself (experience might teach we to change my ways!). As regards solar/battery heat lamps, i'll be very interested to see how you get on. I hope to run my heat lamps from a stream, but i'm going electric first. I'll try water power out when I have no piglets to see just how effective it is. Best of luck, but i'm sure that those more experienced than I will be of greater help.

Morgan  :farmer:

gavo

  • Joined Aug 2008
  • Belcoo, Enniskillen, N.Ireland
  • Crazy Pig Lover
Re: heat mats or lamps
« Reply #2 on: February 08, 2009, 08:23:39 am »
Could you not buy a DC-AC inverter from somewhere like Halfords or Argos ? Most come with crocodile clips that you want simply connect to the battery and then you simply plug the heat lamp into the inverter. Make sure the output of the inverter (in watts) is more than the wattage of the bulb.

Cheers

Gavin

Hilarysmum

  • Joined Oct 2007
Re: heat mats or lamps
« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2009, 09:29:06 am »
If the piglets are with mum plenty of straw, warm and dry they wont need heatlamps.  We only use ours if we have a sick one.  Have farrowed in all weathers.  No problems.  My friend farrows hers outside, she has piglets all year round, lives in New York State, so plenty of cold weather there.  Just feed mum well.  They should be fine.  We have a crawl space around the ark.  No squashings so far. 

We have a new litter today.  Quite exciting.  Hilary is now a great grandmother.

rustyme

  • Guest
Re: heat mats or lamps
« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2009, 12:23:44 pm »
yep , can't beat the info given already !!! I would go the way of HM , no heat mat/lamps at all . Any pigs I have looked after never had anything other than plenty of straw in a dry arc/shed. Battery powered heat mat lamps would use a fair bit of electricity , and you would need a large bank of batteries to keep it all going . You would also need a good charging system , I doubt a trickle charge would do the job , ie  trickle charger of 1 watt per hour (only during the day for solar !!) would only put in  a max of 10 watts per day. I can't imagine  any heat mat/lamp that would run on that ? So if you had a mat/lamp that was say 100 watts , that was running for only 10 hours a day . You would need god knows how many batteries to keep it going , an inverter would convert from 12v to 240v but it also uses power itself . So you have another loss to cope with ..ie you need even more power/batteries. I have lived with inverters and batteries and unless you have a really good charging system , it is a real pain . With a good charging system it is a good way to keep off the grid , but you always end up having to buy new batteries,and car even tractor batteries aren't the ones to buy for that system .  The new led solar powered lights are great, but heat mats/lamps are a different matter. Good ole straw will do the job fine , pigs are really tuff little sods and get by with very basic stuff.

cheers

Russ

 

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