the razor's edge of near complete disaster

[bj taylor]

our power went out last night & been out all morning. a cold front has blown in. chicks are cold. we put one of those propane heaters in the hoop house to hold them. I thought I was so careful & had things far enough away. I put a bag of pine chips against the brooder to block draft & I thought It was far enough away from heat source. I've kept checking on them because I don't like heaters & afraid they were getting too cold.

the electricity came on a few minutes ago. I go out to turn that gas heater off. it had melted the corner of the plastic bag of chips & chips were starting to smell!!!!!!!!!! THANK GOD!!!, He was keeping me from total unmitigated disaster.
I pulled the chips out of the bag to make sure nothing smoldering in there. it has made me sick to my stomach. I want to bawl like a baby for what I almost did.

 

[canesisters]

Oh my gosh! That really was a close one.

 

[lesa]

Wow! That story could have ended way worse! Thank goodness, you went out there when you did... those heaters and heat lamps always make me paranoid, too.

 

[baymule]

Good timing! It is a scary thing to think of what ALMOST happened, but didn't. You got to it in time. What this really is a blessing. Now because of what almost happened, you get to think this thing through and come up with a BETTER plan for power outages.

The front just got here, it is pouring down rain. The cold will show up shortly.

 

[897tgigvib]

Whew, close call!

It is when routine is changed that things can happen.

 

[bj taylor]

yes. I am going to have a "plan" in place for any future power outages. it's exactly what you say marshall; it's when routines are interrupted things can happen.

 

[thistlebloom]

Glad that all is well BJ

 

[vfem]

I'm so sorry. You were so very lucky. Go give hugs to all your little chickies!!!

 

[MontyJ]

Wow, very lucky indeed! It's going down to 30 tonight so I turned on three of the heat lamps. I was careful to wipe all of the dust off of them and double checked the wire supports and hooks. I'll double check everything shortly to make sure all is OK. My chicks are 6 weeks old and pretty much feathered out, but I don't like the idea of going from 80 yesterday to 30 tonight.

 

[Smart Red]

BJ, that possibility has always frightened me as well. I probably would have spent my time carrying hot water bottles back and forth until the power came back on.

Boy, I sure am enjoying letting Hilda do all the work with this batch of chicks. Mamma knows just what to do regardless of the power situation.