I have everything I need prepared and ready for 25 chicks arriving around Jan 7-8. Except for one thing that isn't prepared that I have no control over - ME. I have just been scheduled for a full knee replacement on Jan. 19. Unfortunately there is no other date as an option. It is either do it then or suffer the possibility of not having it done and possibly not be able to walk again. I have my brother and a friend that can come by once a day. That worries me because I am retired and available all the time were it not for the surgery. Any thoughts or suggestions of things I might do during this time other than pray we don't have a power outage? Thanks.
Well good luck with your new knee first of all!!!! What if your brother and his split up their visits so there would be 2 visitations?
Don't worry, you will be up and walking before you leave the hospital. You will be using a walker, but you will be getting up and around. Hospital stays are usually no more than three days. Just make sure you have a new heat bulb installed in their heat lamp and if you are using the regular chick waterers, get the gallon size so they don't run out before the sitter arrives. Make sure you tell sitter to fill it up daily. At ten days old, they will be large enough not to drown in it. Make sure they can't clog it will shavings! I usually elevate mine just a bit on scrap pieces of 2x4 to keep it above the shavings. Your chicks should be big enough by then to still reach it. If you have the bucket fed nipple waterers, they should be fine as far as water goes. Get the little hanging feeders that you can fill up and put a couple of those in the brooder and they should be good on feed too if you have someone coming daily. I only had six chicks in my brooder, but I was gone five days without a sitter and they were fine when I came home. They had a two gallon bucket that fed a pipe nipple waterer and one of the small hanging feeders filled along with one more regular chick feeder. Feeders were near empty, but there was enough feed on the floor with the shavings that they would have been fine for another day if need be. If your brooder is big enough, it's not a bad idea to have two heat bulbs, one on each side, just in case one burns out. But you do need to make sure those bulbs are far enough apart that chicks can get out from under them if they get hot. Or use maybe a lower wattage bulb in one of them. If your heat bulb does go out for some reason, the chicks usually will huddle for warmth. Just have an extra handy incase your sitter needs to change one out. Is you brooder inside? I would be more worried about losing chicks if the brooder was out in a coop or shed. If it's inside and the light goes out, it won't be as bad for them since they will huddle together.
Thanks for your input and suggestions. My brother is definitely big enough, LOL, he is 60 yrs. old. My brooder is big enough to hold about 60 chicks and I do have two IR bulbs with plenty of room for them to roam. It is in an outside coop that is built like a home, free from drafts and well insulated. My biggest worry is getting a power outage during that time and how to tell my brother and my best friend how to deal with that. Once I'm home I won't worry because I have an alarm that will tell me in the house during night or day if the power goes out. I am considering buying a propane type camp heater with a 20 pound tank just in case of a power outage. I don't know if anyone has ever tried that and if they did how did it work? Again thanks.
I would guess that would work to keep the outside house warm enough for them to survive a power outage. Not sure how long it would last before it runs out. As long as it can't start a fire in the house, it should be fine. Will the chicks have a light source if the power goes out? Is there a window? They can't eat and drink in the dark if you have a power outage for a significant length of time. I was going to suggest telling your brother to fill a hot water bottle and set it inside the brooder, but that is a short term solution that would likely only work for several hours, not a whole day. My other suggestion was purchasing some "hot hands" and putting a few of them in the brooder. Those things do create some warmth! My worry with them would be if the chicks start pecking them and are able to tear them apart after they cool off. They are also only a short term solution.
They will have natural light in the day time from a window. At night they will only have a small amount of light from the heater which is the equivalent of about 40 watts. I thought about the other suggestions you mentioned and my thoughts were the same. They would not last very long.
I saw a wonderful thing on the DIY inventions thread... Someone came up with the idea of tying a bunch of feather dusters together in a corner of their brooder as sort of a surrogate broody, lol, for the chicks to snuggle under. If you do that and the power does go out, they can keep themselves warm with their body heat and the feather dusters will keep that heat insulated for the little ones
This is a take on what i did for my last batch of chicks once I moved them outside. I had these fluffy duster things that fit on a handle. There's bits of soft fabric hanging all over. I had an old wire rack shelf from a fridge that had supports on each side and i wove these dusting cloths loosely through the wire racks so bits hung down. They LOVED it. they push their wee faces between the fabric and make that cooing noise just like they do with a real hen. What you could do also is have one of those microwave heating pads on the top of it maybe with something insulating the heat...a folded towel or something so that it radiates heat. But even that bit of a ceiling above them will keep the heat of their accumulative bodies in. They can keep warm together. I'm readying the momma duster just now as i have eggs in the incubator that have just started to pip.
That sounds like a good idea. But, I can hear my wife now, "Are you crazy?" Because I would have to buy a lot of them for 25 chicks.