A Little About Chickens; About Us
If you buy baby chicks at a local store this spring and have never raised them. I may be able to give you a few tips on the raising of chickens.
I will now share a little about myself and the raising of chickens. My wife (Hadassah) and I bought a farm in 2005.) I thought the barn would be a great place to put my truck and lawn gear when I came home from a days work, I had no idea that I would love farming.
There were three horse stalls in the barn and one was converted into a chicken coop. So we decided to buy eight baby chicks. About four months later one of the chicks looked a little different (it was a rooster.)
We then decided to get an incubator, and then an acquaintance gave us a 300 egg incubator in good working order.
We hatched around a thousand chicks in that incubator and at one time I had a small incubator and the large one running. I have learned a little about the raising, shipping and selling chickens since then.
A Little About Chicks; Bringing them home.
Before you go to the local feed store to pick up your baby chicks, prepare your brooder for their arrival. A brooder is what baby chicks are kept in before you introduce them into a chicken coop.
First off get 2 wooden boxes or plastic boxes at least 3’X3′ Not unless you are going to buy more than twenty five chicks. Then add an extra sq. ft per five chicks. this will allow plenty of room for them to roam around. Next make a layer of wood chips about two inches thick on the bottom of the box.
Next you will need a heat source and nothing works better than the heat lamps they sell at the feed store. Purchase two of them.
Now that you have your box ready for your chicks you need to decide what kind of chicks you are going to purchase and how many.
If you want good egg layers nothing beats a white leg-horn. They lay six to seven eggs a week. There are to many brown egg layers to name that are good egg layers so I will name by temperament some that are very gentle. (All these verities lay 5-6 eggs per week BUFF ORPINGTON, BARRED ROCK, BLACK SEXLINK, RED SEXLINK and Rhode Island Red’s. I will say it again their are many breeds of chicks but these are proven breeds and good egg layers.
Now you need to know how many chicks you will purchase, This is easy, if you have a family of four buy six chicks at the most. With six chicks you will be giving away eggs to your neighbors. Unless you have teenagers.
Another thing you will have to think about is if you want a rooster. If you do you will have to have at least ten hens. Do not cut back on this ratio. I always ran 12 hens to a one rooster ratio and it keep the coop calm.
If you want to purchase a rooster you will have to buy straight run stock. Strait run stock is non sex sorted chicks. In other words they don’t sex them. Or you can order three roosters (cockerels) and how every many hens you want as long as you don’t want more than thirty. Even if you only order ten hens order three roosters. If two of the roosters die your still fine. If they don’t you can always make chicken stew.
If you buy straight run chicks at the local feed store buy about six of them and then buy ten hens (pullets). You will end up with at least one rooster but usually you will end up with one or two hens. A good rooster can take care of fifteen pullets.
Now that you have bought your chicks lets check your to buy list.
1 bag of shavings or get stuff from home. 2. two heat lamps 3. One bag of fifty pound chick starter (Do not buy the medicated!) your chicks and one feeder and a drinking station.
We Are Home
First things first, get your heat source set up. I use a 60 watt light bulb for my heat source instead of a two hundred and fifty watt heat lamp. for two reasons. One its cheaper and two the fire hazard is less.
The sixty watt light bulb will work by doing the following; putting any structure over the top of the box that you have. This is why I use wood boxes. I just put a piece of plywood over the top of it or a blanket with two boards underneath it so the blanket doesn’t fall through.
The sixty watt bulb will heat up the box so nice that the baby chicks will walk around the whole box instead of bunching up or staying away from the heat source. and if it heats it up to much just open up the top a little.
Put your chicks in the brooder one at a time and handle them with care. Don’t handle them a whole lot the first day, after that let the kids handle them a little. If your children are under three keep the baby chick in your own hand and let him or her pet the chick on the head. This will save you a sad moment.
If you see your chicks bunching up, it is too cold in the brooder, if they are against the walls of the brooder it is to hot. I have never seen the low wattage light bulb fail to produce a good temperature for baby chicks.
Again. to reduce the temperature I just open up the lid until desired temperature is reached.
how do you know your baby chicks are at the right temperature? How they move around; if they are just walking around and pecking at everything in site, they are fine. Again if they bunch up they are too cold and if they get as far away from the heat source as possible they are too hot.
Feed For Your Chicks
Your baby chick feed will have grit in it, so don’t buy any. The chicks will store grit in their gizzards and use that grit to literally grind up their food. Again, do not buy grit! It is a waste of money.
When you set up your watering station, put it on a couple of bricks. Bury the bricks a little in the bedding, so that your watering station will be shoulder high to your chicks. Take one or two chicks to the watering station if they don’t find it. Don’t worry the rest will find it in good time.
Set your (food) feeder up on top of a dish or paper plate. Chicks are messy eaters and you will save a ton of feed buy putting a dish just above the bedding.
A few things to look for while raising your baby chicks.
- sick chicks, the rule of thumb is that one out of about ten chicks from the hatchery is going to die. The first signs of a sick chick is that it will look lethargic and be a loner. Remove it from the clutch as soon as possible. You can put it in a shoe box and try to nurse it back to health or you can cull (kill) it.
- Check for pasty butt; pasty butt is when poop stops up the baby chicks vent. To cure this, wipe their little bottoms with a real warm soft towel. And then wipe a couple of more times. Check your chicks for this when you get them from the hatchery.
- Make sure that your order of chicks comes within three days of ordering them. If they don’t, you may get a high death rate. This is normal, and any good hatchery will send you a free order of chicks. We use Ideal Hatchery and have never had a problem with them. Check out their specials.
- Watch your heat lamps, Baby chicks need less heat as they get older. About five degrees per week. At 5-6 weeks they will need no heat at all.
- At six weeks the chicks are ready for the coop, as long as there are no other chickens in the coop. (I will share what to do to mix birds later.)
- Remember this, and it will help you, when raising live stock. Where there is live stock there is dead stock. The next post will be; Into the coop they go.
maintenance
dust off heat lamp (The dust on the heat lamp can catch on fire.)
Keep the brooder clean and the water changed daily. Clean out the water container every two to three days. You can use vinegar or just scrub the inside and outside of your water container real hard with hot water.
If you are going to your local feed store to buy chicks, you will find that their stock is usually in healthy condition. Be warned all sales are final due to the fact that the local feed store does not know where you put the chicks and if you have any diseases were you put them.
When the sales person picks out the chicks make sure they are chirping and moving around well. Note the local feed store will usually feed the baby chicks a booster (electrolytes) in their water when they arrive at the store. If they don’t, no need to worry.
In The Midst of His Garden 