URGENT! LOOSING POWER SOON WITH A BROODER FULL OF CHICKS!

[bantambury]

This is urgent! Here in NC we are supposed to be hit with a major ice storm pretty soon loosing power.....of all things I was worried about everything around me....my refrigerator, stove, heat! I TOTALY forgot about my 12 chicks in the garage!!! They are 6 weeks and 1 day old today.....their brooder temp set to 70ish.....my house is 65, and in my garage its chilly enough for me to get goose bumps and have to wear a sweatshirt. right now, outside it says its 30 degrease. I don't know how cold my garage will get....better yet my house when we loose our power!


I have NEVER hatched or had chicks in the brooder in the winter.....for the fear of THIS happening! what do you guys do to keep your chicks warm when the power goes out!?!?!?!? I don't want to loose these babies! hatched them from my laying hens....my first fertile flock ever. (just started keeping roos in June)

I was thinking one way to keep the chicks warm is to keep a fleece blanket I don't really care for anymore in the brooder.....along with some hot hands covered in paper towel (so the chicks don't eat them) will this work? I really need to find out what you all do pronto before it starts showing or raining! (so I can get out to the store if I need to.)

Everything I have thought of other than the blanket and hot hands involved needing heat, which would not work.

PLEASE help!

thanks,
~Bantambury

 

[chickenlover247]

If you don't mind spending money you can always buy a generator.

 

[bantambury]

If you don't mind spending money you can always buy a generator.

Yeah....we have a generator....but totaly forgit to test run it!

 

[chickenlover247]

If it works you could try to hook it up, then you should be A-O.K.

 

[bantambury]

If it works you could try to hook it up, then you should be A-O.K.

thanks!

 

[NinjaRooster]

Generator.
Just remember to keep it outside. Carbon monoxide poisoning would not be a good thing.

Don't forget to check the oil!

 

[Gingerhen]

Are you able to bring them in to the house?

 

[Penny Hen]

Do you have a way to heat water? Colman Stove, Kerosine heater, Fireplace, BarBQue grill. Heat the water and pour it up in 2 liter coke bottles or mason jars. Cover them in a towel and make two columns so that the chicks can lay in between them. Cover the whole box with a heavy blanket. Rotate the water for fresh hot water about every hour. If you have enough jars to make up twice the amount needed to heat your chicks that would be best because you won't have to leave them without heat while you are fixing the next batch of hot water.

If you get really desperate and don't have too many chicks you can wrap them up in a towel and stuff them between you T-shirt and you sweatshirt that you are wearing. I once had to wrap a newborn lamb who had hypothermia in a towel and tuck it in bed with me during a power outage. Worked perfectly. Lamb was warm and spunky in the morning.