Disaster!

[silentrunning]

Sometime during the night our light burned out on our brooder. When I woke up this morning all the baby quail were in the rim of the waterer. I assume that it was warmer than the air so they tried to huddle in and got wet. Several were dead and all were soaked and cold. We got them out and dried them off as best we could. I then put a 100 watt bulb in and got them warmed up. Some of them are moving around and fluffing back out, but it’s too early to tell how many are going to make it. If there is a bright spot it is that my wife sold and delivered most of this hatch yesterday. The bad news is we had one uniquely colored yellow and white one that we couldn’t wait to have feather out. He didn’t make it. My new rule is that each hatch will get brand new bulbs for the brooder and I’m going to make an alarm out of a thermostat I have. Meanwhile – I feel like crap!

Doug

 

[Ironsun]

Hi,

Sorry to hear about your loss, it's happened to me once. I now use two light bulbs in my brooders of lower wattage in case one blows, at least this way they still have some heat for them to get under.

Ironsun.

 

[Crazy4Chicks]

I had the same thing happen a few weeks ago with my button quail I hatched out - lost a few really pretty babies because the light went out and they piled up in the water dish

all of them were soaked to the bone - lucky for them I had the bator still up and running waiting for a few last minute hatches so I scooped up all my survivng babies and put them back in the bator they warmed up and dried off pretty fast
I was able to save all of them

dont be to hard on yourself - things like that happen to all of us

 

[_lizzer_]

So sorry for your loss...

This happened to me, but on a homemade incubator...I had only one of twenty eggs hatch. (although, i think some of the eggs were already bad)

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Sorry for your loss. That's a good idea about the alarm though I hadn't thought about that before. We have had bulbs burn out but never for fresh hatched. I was just thinking I have a couple photocells that I got to put up some outside lighting for a friend of mine. Those could be used to sound an alarm instead of turning on a light.

Steve in NC

 

[citalk2much]

I am very sorry for your loss

 

[silentrunning]

Thanks guys. When I got home from work tonight my wife had everything cleaned up and the remaining babys don't look any the worse for wear. I hope they'll be ok. I'm putting 40 more eggs in the incubator Saturday so I have to get busy making the brooder fool proof. Due to the storms down here today we have had a lot of power outages so I think I'll take the waterer out before I go to bed just to be on the safe side.

Doug

 

[Munchies]

For our many bators and such we have 7 hour backups by Tripp Lite. And when those start to beep, we switch over to our Solar Panel back-up large Marine Batteries and inverters. These get charged every day the sun comes out. We can go about 22 hours with no sunshine and still keep all are babies warm.