Raising Off Grid Baby Chicks & Car Repair Today

This is an update on my off grid baby chicks I am raising upstairs in my tiny house. I am raising chicks from a single day of age with zero electricity involved and no mother chickens. I am simply raising chicks upstairs in my tiny house by managing the overall household temperature.

The chicks are upstairs in the highest point of my tiny house loft. The heat rises so it gets hotter up there. I have to keep the downstairs about 80 degrees F for the first few days of a chicks life but then I can reduce the temperature slowly day by day.

On the second week I can have the downstairs temperature as low as 73 degrees F with no harm coming to the chicks upstairs.

I am using no heat lamp, not special brooder and no energy at all to raise these chicks.

The trick is to raise a few birds to their second week. These are then strong enough to handle the lower temperatures.

The newly hatched chicks can then cuddle up with the larger two or three week old chicks for extra warmth.

This has been working for me all spring so far with no lost birds.

The first bath of chicks I kept warmer though for the first three weeks. After that, the following batches have managed quite well.

I rotate out the larger birds after their 4th week when they start to feather out and get too large to be in with the tiny babies. The largest of the chicks outside keep the medium sized chicks warmer. This all works out nicely with the off grid chick rotation system I have in place this year.

My car was not starting easily anymore and I was sure it was the battery. The engine would turn over very slowly and barely start. I am fortunate that the engine is tuned nicely or the battery would not have had the power to start it.

I did a volt meter test anyway to be sure it was the battery and not the charging system. I connected a volt meter to the battery with the engine running and read 15 volts under charge.

When I turned off the engine the battery immediately dropped down to 13 volts.

When I turned the key to start the engine the battery dropped down to 8 volts.

This is a sign that the battery is defective and not the charging system. The higher voltage under charge means that the battery was not taking the charge. The lower voltage under load means that the battery did not have the capacity to start the car anymore.

A new battery for my car was quoted to me at $169. After gasping a bit over that price I moved on looking for a better deal. I eventually found a battery at TSC for a hundred and put it in the car. All is well now.

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