Heat Lamp Explosion

[turbo13]

Sacary Nite, Just Went To The Garage Where My 4 Chicks Are Being Kept,till Their Coop Is Done. They Are In A Kids Wadding Pool. Good Thing I Went There. The 250 Watt Heat Lamp Exploded In The Pool. The Chicks Were Sleeping On The Other Side . Freaked Me Out So I Moved Them To A Box, While I Changed To Bedding. That Red Glass Is Delitefull Treat. I Hope No One Ate It.i Looked For Blood. All Seemed Ok. I Wish The Lite Fixture Came With A Screend Cover, Instead Of That Stupid 4 Pronged Thing.

 

[dawg53]

Very lucky indeed that it was night time and the chicks were sleeping....if it was during the daytime, no telling what would have happened.

 

[LeezyBeezy]

Wow- that's scary. Best of luck with all the glass, hope the littles didn't eat it too!

 

[xke4]

Would there have been any chance of a bit of water splashed up onto the surface of the lite bulb? That is a very scary thing as I use them every day.

 

[sgtmom52]

Quote:
Wow ~ good thing you found it.

My heat lamp also had the four prong shield and I took a piece of 1/4" hardware cloth and bent it to fit over the prong shield and put the prong ends through the wire to hold it on. I felt better with the extra covering, less chance of an accidental contact burn for me and if it fell it would not contact the wood shavings & would be less likely to start a fire. It would also contain most of the glass in case of breakage. It was a little difficult to get on, but worth it to me.

 

[bdfive]

I'm searching right now for covers over heat lamp fixtures but haven't found any for sale. I had a bulb break in the brooder and a rare Java peacock chick cut bad. Also couldn't find all of the glass. It's been a few weeks and peachicks haven't died so guess if they ate any it served as grit. I can't believe covers aren't made. Peafowl will easily fly up against the bulbs and knew someone whose peachick got hung up on the wired guard provided and died there. I've put a screen over it for now but a pain to change the bulb. Need to do the others but it was time consuming for a temp fix.

 

[featherz]

back before I got my ecoglows, I had several of these:

http://www.premier1supplies.com/detail.php?prod_id=18266

They are HUGE, but they did the job.

 

[springsrun]

You can also get shatter-proof red heat lamp bulbs. The bulb is teflon coated so that if it shatters, the shards stay within the teflon coating. They're used in food operations. I use them for my bottle baby goats. They can get pretty rambunctious. I use them inside the large Premier lamp that was posted about earlier. The bulbs are a little pricier than the regular red heat bulbs but worth the peace of mind. When I start hatching my own chicks, that's what I'll be using.

Here is a link to one site that carries them:
http://www.bulbtown.com/250R40_10_120V_250_WATT_RED_SAFETY_COATED_HEAT_p/03510.htm

 

[bdfive]

What are ecoglows?

Thanks for the link on the shatterproof bulbs.

Forgot to say the Java peachick survived the cut. That little guy is a fighter. He became ill twice and revived him with Tylan 50 and vitamins. Then the cut. He's going to be a beauty.

 

[threewildboys]

I know this is an old post, but wanted to be sure to post a warning here about 'shatter-proof' bulbs. They are coated in PTFE, which is Teflon, and very toxic to birds. Many manufacturers, but not all, now have warnings not to use for poultry. Some say 'plastic coated'. Just had someone in my 4H poultry club go through 2 sets of 7 poults before figuring out it was the new heat bulb.

Google it and you will see that word is getting out to poultry growers not to use these new shatter-proof bulbs.

Murray McMurray has a great article about this and they sell a 'splatter proof' bulb that is coated in pyrex glass so that it will not explode when a hot bulb contacts water. Totally different than the 'shatter proof' ones.