'Mysterious' self-unscrewing lamp....

[bayareapilot]

Okay, first of all my hens, as far as I know, don't have fingers. So how does my heating lamp in their coop gradually keep getting unscrewed. Checked the lamp just yesterday after we had a few cool nights here, only to see that it was substantially unscrewed and hence, had not been working.

I screw it in tight each time, so how does this happen? By the way I am using one of those radiant heater 'bulbs', the ones that just give off infrared heat and no light.

Thanks in advance!

 

[OldGuy43]

The first thing that crosses my mind is vibration. Do you have a fan or anything like that nearby? Whoops, The City by the Bay. Earthquakes?

 

[darkmatter]

Quote:
Is there anything causing vibration? Does your heat lamp cycle on/off---that will cause a expand & contract cycle that can also cause movement. Do you have a poltergeist? Are the chickens pecking at it? Maybe you shouldn’t use a heat lamp at all---there have been many fires and coop/chicken losses due to them.

 

[bayareapilot]

Quote:
Is there anything causing vibration? Does your heat lamp cycle on/off---that will cause a expand & contract cycle that can also cause movement. Do you have a poltergeist? Are the chickens pecking at it? Maybe you shouldn’t use a heat lamp at all---there have been many fires and coop/chicken losses due to them.

Hmm... No fan, but it IS on a timer and I had thoughts about the on/off cycles (cooling/heating/cooling) creating some mechanical action as you suggested. Could hens pecking at the housing of the lamp (not the lamp itself which they can't reach) cause the 'bulb' to loosen? Hadn't considered that...

I *think* I have the lamp secured so it won't go anywhere... Does make me think though; after all I live in San Francisco and we really don't have any significantly low temperatures here at night, although it does get a little nippy on occasion.

Many thanks !

 

[bayareapilot]

Quote:
Well our tremors hit recently,,, and I have no fan,,, but interesting thought! Many thanks for your thoughts!

 

[jmlorton]

it must be the cycling because your outside temp probably doesn't get cold enough to cause it to shrink enough to loosen it might just be a loose lamp and if its cheap enough id buy a new lamp or try a new bulb sometimes they are off just a bit and it might make it loosen.

 

[bobbi-j]

Honestly, being in San Francisco, your chickens would be just fine without the heat lamp. Many of us in the northern climates where it drops into the -20's to -30's in the winter don't have heat lamps for our chickens. It can be more detrimental if they get used to having them and the electricity would happen to go off for some reason.

 

[christineavatar]

I live in Bolinas, in western Marin county. My birds do fine without any kind of heating all year 'round.

 

[silkiechicken]

Quote:
Yeah... that. I'd ditch the heat, unless it was regularly in the -20's or something.

 

[Hooligans7]

My chickens unscrewed a compact fluorescent lamp that hadn't been used for months, so heating/cooling cycles cannot be a factor in my case. I decided to allow them to rest naturally over the winter this time so I didn't use any supplemental lighting. Not only did they unscrew the lamp, which fell to the coop floor, they pushed it out of the chicken door, down the ramp and out of the coop as if it were a defective egg. It's the only instance of a completely unscrewed lamp at my house that I didn't do myself, so the chickens were the only ones that had the opportunity, but what was their means — and their motive?