Evacuating, leaving birds in bathroom. Questions...

[Akrnaf2]

I would leave them battery operated flashlight .
A small light is better than no light at all.

 

[ashorty7]

Yea. Ideally I could figure out a way of bringing them... but we also have a dog, a cat, and friends who are less eagle scout then me. I also have to work the marlins game tomorrow night. I could maybe rig up some sort of cage. I have chicken wire and they could ride in the bed of my truck (full cap). But it seems like it's a pretty low priority vs getting on the road and avoiding getting stuck on the highway with a pregnant wife.

I'm looking forward to reading more about no light vs some light if there are more opinions. There is a very good chance this storm will go east or west of us and we won't lose power at all. The big threat is if it goes up the spine of the state and takes out the cities on both coasts. To be clear, this storm is wider than the entire freaking state....

 

[ashorty7]

I could leave a battery powered LED light with spare batteries and have a neighbor change those batteries assuming we lose power but the house is still viable. It's the number of variables that make this tricky. I will certainly get this setup as an option.

 

[ashorty7]

With constant light you would have to worry about feather pecking and cannablism too. Unless you had a red light but I'm not sure how long that would last if you loose power..

I could do red party gel over a lightbulb... but it would be dependent on power.

 

[ashorty7]

Take them with you and kill the main power switch to your house. turn off all your water. make sure the main gas gauge is turned off.
definitely do not leave any sockets live for those birds.
take them with you to North Carolina. that's the best idea. take your chickens and a 25 lb bag of food.
Karen

Thank you Karen,
I'm leaving power on for my cameras and alarm system. Looters are a potential issue. We have plenty of food we can bring or leave them. The sockets can be easily covered so they can't get to them. There is no gas in the area so it's only electrical. it is an interesting concern to shut off water to the bathroom so they can't accidentally turn on a faucet. I'll have to ask my plumber neighbor about shutting off my main water in to my house. Didn't think of that. Thank you again.

 

[ashorty7]

I just saw your wife is very pregnant. fill the truck with the things she thinks are important. throw the chickens in the bathroom. turn off all the lights and the water .leave them some water and food and go.
Karen

Happy wife... happy life.

 

[ashorty7]

Could you rig one of these up for the trip and so you dad will be a little more happy that his sun porch doesn't have chickens?

Potentially. It's sort of a small condo / town house situation / old folks area / rural NC situation. I don't want to roll up with our south florida crowd, throwing a party and putting livestock in the manicured grass lol.... I can bleach the whole tile porch pretty easily.

 

[Akrnaf2]

What about a HUGE CHICKENS DINER before the storm? Imagine it as a pre storm party?

 

[3riverschick]

ashorty7,
You must work at Lowe's. that's the motto of all the guys at Lowes. really funny. Karen

 

[ashorty7]

OK! I wanted to give a quick update. I've been in hurricane recovery mode here while also getting back to regular life.

Chickens went into the bathroom. Grabbed them out of the coop when they were sleeping. I put a tarp down over as much of the tile as I could. I gave them 2 feeders for of food, and several bowls of water. They were pretty much asleep by the time I brought the next birds in. Its funny what darkness does to chickens. They could care less that I just grabbed them out of the coop and moved them into an air conditioned bathroom. They spent 5 days in the bathroom before a neighbor (who didn't evacuate) brought them back to their coop (WHICH WAS TOTALLY UNDAMAGED!!).

I put 2 night lights on a timer so they had 12 hours of dim light until the power went out. They went about 48 hours in complete darkness with out any A/C. Everyone survived despite size differences. No signs that they fought. The neighbor reported that they seemed pretty normal and they were easy to catch.

When I got home to no power, I checked on the bathroom. Yikes!! They were little poop machines. It took about 3 hours to clean up the tiny bathroom in 90 degree heat. Paint scrappers, lots of bleach, many mop buckets of water. The smell persisted, but my friend came up with a great idea that really took the edge off.

She ran out and bought us some toilet bleach cleaner (think Toilet Duck). We traced all the grout with this super concentrated cleaner. We let it sit there for an hour or two and then moped and moped and moped. So soapy.

There was still some smell but we def got most of it out. When we got electricity back and the central air kicked on, the smell pretty much went away. It's organic so it should fade overtime as anything left decomposes.

THINGS I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY:
1) tightly seal off the floor. I gotta find industrial sized plastic wrap. Maybe the stuff they use to wrap palates for shipping.

That's about it.