Now What?
You’ve ordered your chicks and set your pick-up appointment. Now what?
Now is a great time to do a little reading so that you are well-equipped to take excellent care of your little ones.
This article will cover:
Brooder Prep
Expectations & Cautions
2% mortality
Coccidiosis
Marek’s
Squishy Lump on Neck
Teflon
Poopy bum
Pick Up Day
When You Get Them Home
Water
Heat
Leg Bands
Further Reading
Brooder Prep: First thing you want to do is get your brooder set-up. Now I can rent one to you if you like, or you can assemble it all for yourself. Lots of good tips here: Brooder Tips. Also take a look at this post, but don’t feel like you need to buy it all at once: What to Buy. And please don’t put a Feather Duster in there, click to find out why.
Expectations & Cautions:
Chick Mortality: I’d also like you to read The 2% Chat. It’s not a pretty conversation, but necessary.
Coccidiosis: Coccidiosis can take your chicks from perky to dead in just a handful of hours. Here is a great article on that, but the Reader’s Digest version is that if your chicks are drowsy and stand all puffed out and slumpy you have just a couple hours left to save them — so go read that article now so you don’t waste precious time later. You can offer medicated chick starter for the first week home, and again for about a week before and after you move them outside; this helps support their immune system as they acclimate to your resident coccidia. Do feed unmedicated chick starter during non-adjustment periods.
Squishy Lump on Neck: Chicks store their food in a little pouch on the neck. It is quite common for new chicken parents to notice the lump and be alarmed. Tumor! Disease! Panic! Nope. No need. It’s normal and healthy. More info here.
Teflon: Also please take a look at the dangers that teflon presents to your chicks.
Poopy Bum: It is not unusual for chicks to get poopy bum. Getting chilled can bring it on, as can the stress of moving. Run warm water over her little tushy to soften the poo and use a toothpick or a comb to scrape the goo away. Then dab olive oil or spray pan spray on her bum to help future poops glide away. You can add a glug of Apple Cider Vinegar with the Mother to their water for a day or two to establish good gut flora and fauna, but not more than a few days as vinegar leaches calcium away.
Pick Up Day: All your pick-up day instructions are in this article: How to Pick Up Chicks.
When You Get Them Home:
Water: Pop them into their brooder and show them where the water is — you can show one of them and she will teach the others.
Heat: Watch where they hang out relative to the heat. You want them to be comfy hanging out near the heat, but not directly under it. So if your house gets a lot colder in the night, they have somewhere warmer to go.
Leg Bands: I try to not send chicks out with legbands on them, but if I overlook one, do take it off before it gets snug.
You’ve ordered your chicks and set your pick-up appointment. Now what?
Now is a great time to do a little reading so that you are well-equipped to take excellent care of your little ones.
As chick season heats up, I want to talk to you about Chick Flippers. These are people who place large orders from commercial hatcheries, have the chicks shipped in, and then list them for sale at a HUGE mark-up on Craigslist etc. They don’t disclose . . .
Please oh please don't use a feather duster. Yes, they will love it, but when you find the one that got tangled in it and hung herself, you will feel awful.
Well that depends on many things, chiefly the weather and what does your outside set-up entail.
The rule of thumb is that they need to be ten weeks old if the over-night low is going to be around 30.
That said, I put them out at four weeks at about any time of year. What? Yes. Four weeks, with supplemental heat.
One of my customers — a first-time chicken dad — glibly remarked, “I think I’ll get into breeding, how hard can it be?” One of my more diplomatic friends responded, “You would be surprised.”
No, this is not a dating guide. If you are looking for your soulmate, volunteer with an organization that aligns with your values and priorities. All those other volunteers are your pre-filtered field of candidates. Now, back to chicks . . .
Dalia Monterroso, local resident and President of Chickenlandia, just published a book: “Let's All Keep Chickens!: The Down-to-Earth Guide to Natural Practices for Healthier Birds and a Happier World”.
”Readers will learn how to plan their flock, how to raise baby chicks, what to look for in a chicken coop, how to keep chickens healthy naturally, and more.”
Are you just planning on just one round of chicks? Let me save you the trouble of gathering up all the necessary supplies.
Great question. Chick prices vary according to availability, quality, and investment.
I’ve shared quite a few of my best tips and tricks for setting up a chick brooder, but what about the next step? When they are too little to just toss into the big girl coop, but too big stinky to stay in the house.
At this point, I put them in the big girl coop, with accomodations.
I house birds of different ages together regularly. Here is how I introduce them.
Stella Stargazer: before and after Selenium treatment for wry neck.
We had a great hatch this weekend: 47 eggs went into the hatcher, 46 chicks came out.
New Year, New Floofs: Wheaten/Blue Wheaten/Splash Ameraucanas and Wheaten/Blue Wheaten Marans
Brooder set-up tips, encore.
How to help her, and better yet, how to minimize the occurrences of sticky chick.
Surprise! You are a mama!
Medicated Chick Starter and Fermented Feed.
Girl Chick? Boy Chick? How is one to know?
Sexing chicks. Alas, not as easy as we would wish.