The tweets (Twitter) this week chronicled the anticipated arrival of 52 pheasant hen chicks.  I thought they were shipping Tuesday, but instead, they shipped Wednesday and arrived Friday.  Two travel days meant they might be stressed and indeed, 3 died in transit.

Just as I did with last year’s chicks, I place them in the  brooder box built in the barn. This is now the third set of checks to be raised in the box and with each group, I think the box gets better. It’s still very heavy and I may build a different one for the July arriving pheasants.  I think I  learned some valuable lessons from last season.

I took the thousands from the box they ship and dipped their beaks in water. For the first few days I use paper towels for betting, as they grow bigger I’ll add straw. The temperature hit nearly 80° outside, and the chicks were plenty warm through most of the day and very active. Last night, we had a set of thunderstorms, and that was the beginning of a rough night of sleep.

Power to the router box runs through an extension cord from the main electrical service box. By design I placed it on a ground fault circuit. Somewhere before 2 AM, the ground fault circuit breaker tripped. When I checked the chicks, the warming light was out. I was able to reset the breaker and returned the cabin, but when I checked again at five, the breaker had tripped a second time.

Now awake, I am checking every half-hour. I added a space heater and lowered the lamp to increase the temperature and hopefully revive some of the chilly chicks.