Coop fire

what exactly happ?

sorry to hear !!

lamp on for too long?

I had the same thing happen, clamp-type heat lamp and somehow my chickens knocked it down. I was lucky though, the lamp burned through it's own cord and it shut off and my vinyl floor wasn't all so flammable. I had a 1foot in diameter hole burned through the vinyl and then through the plywood subfloor though.

I still have a heat lamp in my coop but it's securely screwed into a stud overhead and the cord to it is secured along the ceiling where none of the chickens have a hope of getting to it.

that is just sad!

i would cry
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bayhunter 

well actually I plugged my light in at dark to see if my ducks would learn to go to roost back up in the coop. They would not so I caught them put them inside with the chickens and forgot to turn off the lamp Still should have been OK but guess they knocked it down. When I got up this morning I saw someone turn into my drive and then he drove around back. I looked out the back window and flames everywhere. Obviously too late. i put the fire out by the time the fire dept got here. Found all the birds and buried them. Bad day. My wife had them all named. I should have known better than even having a light in there. Had everything built coop secured, wire on the outside covered etc to protect the birds and the fire got them. Insurance man came by for adjustment.
Going to rebuild. Got 14 new baby chicks today. Starting all over.

Thanks for sharing and I'm sorry you lost your animals and hard work. I'm starting to worry a bit about having a 250W heatlamp in close proximity to dry tinder (pine shavings) IN MY HOUSE!! This whole brooder thing (for FIVE weeks) is got me thinking about how I can be safe with this set up...it just seems a bit dodgy to me. What do people do to make it safe in their house? The heat lamp needs to be on all the time right?

I am so sorry to hear about your loss. This happened to us when I was a kid, when my dad rigged up a lightbulb run on an extension cord from the house. We woke up to flames. I was only about 8 years old, but I'll never forget the sight of the fireballs running across our yard. It wasn't until the next morning that my dad told me those had been chickens. We were walking through the rubble, and I could tell he felt horrible about it. He kicked over a burnt carcass in disgust at himself and out ran 3 live baby chicks! Their mother had sat on them and burned alive, but had saved them. I have had a respect for the simple chicken ever since.

Sorry to hear about your loss.  Stories like this make me worry about having lights in the coop.  

I told my husband that story when he wanted to put a light up in winter to keep the hens laying well. He came up with an awesome idea--he put up strings of Christmas lights! They are super-safe, and easy to string up wherever you need them. They don't heat, of course, but we didn't need that, as our coop is just big enough for the number of hens we have, and they are able to keep it pretty cozy with their own body heat.

what a hideous thing!  i have worried so much about my heat lamps.  i have tied them in several ways for insurance.  even then not long ago, i realized my heat lamp was hanging by a thread above my pine shaving floor.

fire balls across the yard being burning chickens running is such an image, no wonder it was never forgotten.