Brooder light caught on fire!

[lengel]

We have a four foot cube brooder box with chicken wire on the top and a 250 W light on top of that. Our chicks are two weeks old and maybe four or five inches tall.

One of them flew so high today that it hit the chicken wire just right and knocked the light to the ground. The bulb shattered and the filaments caught on fire.

Just a warning to secure the lights. No matter how small the chicks, they can fly really high. I thought we had a couple of weeks before hanging the light from the ceiling but clearly not!

 

[silkiechicken]

Yep, brooder lights are a huge danger. If mine are inside, I only use a 100W bulb too, but even that can catch things on fire.

 

[EllyMae]

That is a good FYI. Something to tuck into our memory files for future use. I bet that was scary.

 

[WriterofWords]

Are the babies ok?????

 

[lengel]

The chicks are fine. There's no way that the light could fall into the box - just onto our hardwood floor . . .

 

[WriterofWords]

Whew, glad they are ok! I am sorry about your floor though!

 

[dreammaker8482]

This didn't happen with my brooder, but with my 7ft tall reptile cage. One of our cats used to love to jump on top of the cage to harrass our monitor....well, one day when we came home, we were greeted by smoke coming out our downstairs window. Apparently the cat decided he wanted to play, the lizard tried to bite him, and he got scared and knocked both of the 250 watt bulbs off and onto our couch ....Needless to say, everything turned out OK

, but we no longer had a couch!!! That was the scariest thing ever, and luckily we came home when we did. No we secure them to the cages so we don't come home to that ever again

I hope your babies, and your floor are ok!!

 

[johnmayersquare]

Yikes! Thanks for the heads up..........I am going to triple check mine to make sure it can't fall!

 

[dreammaker8482]

It was quite terrifying to say the least, not to mention all the soot I had to scrub off the walls for hours on end. The house even smelled like and ashtray for months ....But all is well now, and lesson learned!