Manx Wild Bird Aid use Brinsea TLC brooders to support their rescue work.
‘Each year we admit between 1,100 and 1,300 birds, most of which are young, orphaned or injured juvenile birds. Everyone at MWBA is a volunteer and every single penny we raise goes towards helping birds. Our small team of rehabbers mainly care for birds in their own homes, overseen by two more senior members of the team (of which Barbara is one) with two avian vets (also volunteers) on hand to provide expert advice and veterinary care when needed.’
‘Between April and September each year, our incubators are in constant use with baby birds. From tiny sparrows still in the process of hatching to noisy corvids, we get them all. We also admit sick and injured birds all year round and see at first-hand how a constant source of heat can make a real difference to their long-term survival. Our rehabbers are spread across all four corners of the Isle of Man. We have published opening hours but it’s hard to switch off when a message is received about a bird that needs help, regardless of how late in the evening that is. Having an incubator at each of these locations is vital to the work of the charity and allows us to provide care for a bird in immediate need, sometimes overnight but more often on a longer-term basis.’
‘Both the TLC 40 and TLC 50 advance models we recently purchased from Brinsea came securely packaged. We found the assembly instructions easy to follow and building the incubators took no more than 20 minutes. Operating instructions were clear and the TLC 40 was in use with the first injured bird a few hours later. The temperature display is easy to see and the light which comes with the advance models is handy for checking the condition of birds without having to open the door and losing heat. A sick or orphaned bird will often remain in an incubator for several days, so it’s important we can rely on the temperature remaining at the required heat. It’s reassuring to have the comfort of an alarm which can be set to sound if the temperature in the incubator rises or drops too far for any reason. Overall, we’ve found the TLC incubators to be very easy to keep clean and reliable too. We’ve slowly expanded our ‘stable’ of incubators as the charity has grown and some of them have been in use since 2017!’
Jane McCann
