Has anyone ever had close call with fire or smoke inhalation w/chicks?

[BrahmaMama]

I am usually home during the day, so would have checked on the chicks several times throughout...went in to town to help my husband mow a 2 acre lot, and mow at his boss' landscape company. I have two heat lamps in the baby chick coop, and a third sitting on a shelf, that is hooked to a different outlet (but just sitting there, where I *thought* it was safe. Somehow, that switch got flipped-not sure how, as I don't use it. I think it still would have been okay, if the heat lamp would have been laying where it was, but a chick must have flew up and bumped it off. It landed on the little extension plug in part, and that was partially melted, with bedding singed around. I am so thankful we made it home in time, and realize it could have been much worse, but there was smoke in the coop when I opened the door. We opened a window right away, and kept the door open, to air it out, but most of the 5 week old chicks are wheezing.

They have fresh water, and I watched several drink, and even some eat, but the sound of hearing all of them wheezing is breaking my heart. I'm scared to death I'm going to go out to all dead chicks in the morning. Any suggestions? Or is it just going to be a wait and see?

 

[Firefighter Chick]

personally, i would add electrolytes to the water to help them with the healing process. I guess it all depends if there was a lot of burned material (soot) that got into their lungs or if they inhaled super heated air and burned their throats/lungs. If it is a burn, they may have some throat swelling and airway compromise. Keep offering water and perhaps some soggy food in case their regular food would scrape the tender tissue and cause pn. I'm sorry this happened. Perhaps there's someone on here more background on this

 

[BrahmaMama]

Thank you Firefighter Chick. I did add Pedialyte to their water last night. I'm going to head to TSC this morning, and see if I can get some antibiotics in their water, to head off any other respiratory infections, the inhalation may cause. I don't think it got too heated, it was more of the smoke- from the heat lamp sitting on the cord-more of a burned plastic smoke...so I'm kind of worried about the chemicals from the plastic in the smoke-causing even more of an irritation. I lost two dark Brahma cockerels so far; several are still wheezing, but made it through the night, and others are already back to the normal chick sounds-more of a peep then the honking sound it sounded like.

It's just amazing that we made it home-we almost went to my sister and brother in laws campsite, to hang around the campfire for a while...I'm so glad we didn't.