Chicks, lightning, and fire. Oh my!

[bruadarach]

I’m sorry if this is the wrong place to post this!

I need help making some decisions and I hope you guys can help. If you read all this, you’re my hero. I’m so stressed right now, it probably shows in my word vomit.

I live in Northern California in the Santa Cruz Mountains, yes, where the CZU Lightning Complex Fire is raging. At this time, we are five miles east of the end of the evacuation zone. CalFire apparently has no plans to extend that zone right now and the fire is quite far from us, realistically. My brothers family lives in a community in Boulder Creek that is a last holdout, but expected to be gone soon. They are staying with us now. We have four adults, three children, a cat, 8 chicks, and three dogs (two of which are living in a garage because they don’t get along with my dog). We need to free up some space inside this house!

I have eight, nearly 7 week old Easter Eggers inside in our guest bedroom. Their indoor brooder is 4’ by 4’ and I need to get them out. I have no way to make it bigger and never imagined we would be in this situation; I did not plan for this. I had planned to move them out last weekend or before, but we were experiencing temps up to 106, so I postponed (they have the coolest room in the house, lucky chicks). Then the lightning, and then fires, and then poor air quality (along with still high temps) caused me to postpone. I had intended to put them in a small coop/run I have built next to my big coop (currently housing 6 big, RIR mutt pullets) for about a week before putting them all together; the runs run side by side, so they can see each other, but not touch. But I’m running out of time.

The weather is cooling down and the smoke is substantially better than it was a couple days ago. A new lightning storm is expected to possibly hit Sunday through Tuesday this next week though. Very stressful.

I am tempted to put them out tomorrow in the “baby” coop as I call it so that they can get accustomed to being outside. I’m concerned they will outgrow the temporary baby coop before I get a chance to put them out there if I wait any longer, which would mean they would not have the ability to have a slow introduction and would have to go straight in with the big chickens. It feels like now or never.

So I guess I need help making some decisions based around these questions:

1. Is it safe to put them outside, even with poor air quality? The big chickens are handling it well. The heat was rough, but I helped them get through that. They are almost entirely feathered out, if not entirely (depends on the chick). Any remaining down seems to be on under butt and neck. But it’s still warm anyway, and lows are in the low 60’s, so I’m not sure it matters.
2. How long is it really necessary to keep them separate when doing introductions? I’ve found a lot of conflicting info. Some people don’t bother, some people do it very slowly. I’m in a position where I kind of need to do it quickly. If we get lightning and strong winds again, I want them to be in the big coop because it is heavier/sturdier. If I get them out tomorrow, they will have two days (slightly longer if we’re lucky)in the baby coop before they will get mixed in with the big chicks. The baby coop is very small and is really only designed to be a hospital coop/introduction of smaller chicks. It can hold maybe three full grown chickens, but that’s pushing it. The coop will be snug for them at night, but they do have a run during the day.

Sorry for the novel. Any advice you can give would be much appreciated.

 

[Adam B]

I would put them out and put a small fan in the coop to help move the air around.

 

[casportpony]

How are you doing? Still safe?

 

[bruadarach]

How are you doing? Still safe?

Thank you so much for checking in! We are safe. We feel very confident we are safe from this fire for good now. 19% contained and burning north to south (we are East). My brothers neighborhood was ravaged, unfortunately, but miraculously, his home and a few others (out of 25) survived. They will be displaced for some time for obvious reasons, but they should be able to salvage their home. It’s been an emotional week!

The chicks are outside in the baby coop and doing well. Poor things though... they are so used to being handled and being set loose in a bedroom, they want to rush out the door when I check on them. Cuddling them for a bit makes them happy. The big chickens were really weirded out at first by them (the runs are beside each other), but everybody is calming down. I’m not sure when I will put them all together. Probably not for another week at the very least. I will be keeping our scissor beaked chick and a buddy in the small coop for awhile since she is so, so tiny.

Its still smokey, but not anywhere as bad as it was the day we put them out. I miss having them inside, but at the same time, I don’t miss cleaning the brooder and the stink of chicken poop. Haha! They get to scratch and all that good stuff now too which is important for them.

 

[All Ball]

Thank you so much for checking in! We are safe. We feel very confident we are safe from this fire for good now. 19% contained and burning north to south (we are East). My brothers neighborhood was ravaged, unfortunately, but miraculously, his home and a few others (out of 25) survived. They will be displaced for some time for obvious reasons, but they should be able to salvage their home. It’s been an emotional week!

The chicks are outside in the baby coop and doing well. Poor things though... they are so used to being handled and being set loose in a bedroom, they want to rush out the door when I check on them. Cuddling them for a bit makes them happy. The big chickens were really weirded out at first by them (the runs are beside each other), but everybody is calming down. I’m not sure when I will put them all together. Probably not for another week at the very least. I will be keeping our scissor beaked chick and a buddy in the small coop for awhile since she is so, so tiny.

Its still smokey, but not anywhere as bad as it was the day we put them out. I miss having them inside, but at the same time, I don’t miss cleaning the brooder and the stink of chicken poop. Haha! They get to scratch and all that good stuff now too which is important for them.

So sorry you had to go through this - glad you made it through OK. Really feel for all the folks in the CZU, the homes lost in Boulder Creek and Bonny Doon.