We had a scary experience today. Spoilers, everything turned out alright but I want to be better prepared in future.
Around 3:45am today, we lost power. I have 6 chicks that are less than a week old brooding in the house with an electric brooder plate. I left the plate in them initially because it still contained some residual warmth and I cranked up our gas heater to warm up the room some more. When I woke later, I removed the plate and gave them a huddle box with a door. They seemed to take to this fairly well and with the extra heat in the room they were doing well.
I'll post a picture of the box later, my computer is being silly about uploading pictures now.
After presents at my parents house (next door) I came back to get some food and I noticed that even the pilot light was out on our gas heaters. There was no gas coming to the house. PERIOD. The house was starting to get cold, and the chicks were huddled up, outside the huddle box. I moved them all into the huddle box and started trying to figure out what to do with them. My parents' still had gas and was warm, but there were 5 dogs (some aggressive to small, peeping animals) and one cat at my parents' house. So that was an option of last resort. When I checked on the chicks a few minutes later, they weren't huddled together for warmth in the box and weren't peeping in a distressed manner. They seemed content but I know the huddle box wasn't a good long-term solution. It took most of the afternoon to figure out the gas problem but the electric came back on within a half hour of discovering the gas problem and the heater plate was more than sufficient to keep the chicks warm in a cold house.
In short, what solutions have you all come up with to keep chicks warm during a power outage? The suggestion of stuffing them in my bra was made to me, but that is hardly a practical long term solution either.
Around 3:45am today, we lost power. I have 6 chicks that are less than a week old brooding in the house with an electric brooder plate. I left the plate in them initially because it still contained some residual warmth and I cranked up our gas heater to warm up the room some more. When I woke later, I removed the plate and gave them a huddle box with a door. They seemed to take to this fairly well and with the extra heat in the room they were doing well.
I'll post a picture of the box later, my computer is being silly about uploading pictures now.
After presents at my parents house (next door) I came back to get some food and I noticed that even the pilot light was out on our gas heaters. There was no gas coming to the house. PERIOD. The house was starting to get cold, and the chicks were huddled up, outside the huddle box. I moved them all into the huddle box and started trying to figure out what to do with them. My parents' still had gas and was warm, but there were 5 dogs (some aggressive to small, peeping animals) and one cat at my parents' house. So that was an option of last resort. When I checked on the chicks a few minutes later, they weren't huddled together for warmth in the box and weren't peeping in a distressed manner. They seemed content but I know the huddle box wasn't a good long-term solution. It took most of the afternoon to figure out the gas problem but the electric came back on within a half hour of discovering the gas problem and the heater plate was more than sufficient to keep the chicks warm in a cold house.
In short, what solutions have you all come up with to keep chicks warm during a power outage? The suggestion of stuffing them in my bra was made to me, but that is hardly a practical long term solution either.
