Interesting event early this morning. I have a few chicks under a heat lamp in the bathroom. At 1230 am, was awoken to a demanding unhappy cheep cheep cheep.... No power, it had been off since midnight. Spent the next few minutes finding a box, getting the flashlight, finding and activating hand warmers. Three of the four warmers worked. Put them in the box, chicks too. Box in a soft cooler. Went and found more blankets for children. Chicks still peeping but not as much. Took them in bed with me under the covers. Cat wanted to know what the cool scritchy sounds were.... Chicks were still noisy. Ugh! Then, I hear a heavy breathing sound... open up everything and stick hand down into box ... it is too hot!
So now, turn box on side so there is more room to move, let it open a bit, so chicks have hand warmer side and cracked open side for them to find the right temp. I guess that the hand warmers just took a bit of time to get up to full speed. Chicks now banished back to bathroom. They were quite the remainder of the night and into mid morning. Power came back on about 3am. Not sure how cold it got in the house but it wasn't too bad. Chicks were happy and that was the key issue. We would have been ok, especially after finding an additional set of warmers as back up.
I definitely recommend getting a hand full of warmers just to have as a reserve heat source if you are brooding chicks. I am just really happy I wasn't incubating eggs or the power outage didn't last more than the few hours.
