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
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.
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.
