Starting Chickens off Right - Hackberry Magazine

Starting Chickens off Right

It’s that time. Your new chicks just arrived in the mail or hatched after a long and loving 21 days under the incubator. Now that the chicks are here, things don’t necessarily get easier. Instead, the care protocol shifts gears.

Getting chicks off to a good start isn’t necessarily complicated. They have the same basic needs of any animal. However, you should pay extra attention to a few basic things.

Brooding The brooding phase comes after the chicks hatch. The first 24 - 48 hours after hatch is perhaps the most critical stage. During this time they have to learn to fend for themselves by learning to eat and drink, stave off any potential illnesses, stay warm, and establish themselves in the pecking order of identical aged cohorts. Don’t fear, though. With good, sound management practices, your chickens will get off to a healthy start.

Getting the right equipment To brood baby chickens you need some basic equipment. I start off with a spacious place to house the chicks. While you can use a big cardboard box, I use a six foot long livestock trough. The trough has high sides to keep the babies inside and is roomy enough to let the chicks move around to the area of the brooder box where they find the temperature comfortable. Furthermore, the trough has rounded edges and lacks corners. Often chicks, in an attempt to stay warm, will pile up in a corner and suffocate one another.

Of course, I brood the chickens inside a shop or garden shed to protect them from predators and where I am better able to manage the temperature. Once I have my makeshift brooder house in place, all I need is a few more items including:

Heat lamp

When starting out chickens, I use a 250 watt red heat bulb that’s mounted in a brooder lamp. The brooder lamp has a six foot long cord and a safety cage on the front. The long cord allows me to regulate how low or high I can hang the bulb. The height of the bulb in relation to the floor of the brooding box dictates how warm the air is under the bulb. In other words, the lower you hang the build in relation to the floor of the brooder, the more the heat is concentrated and the warmer the area becomes.

I usually start the lamp about a foot off the brooder floor and see how the chicks react when the lamp is on. If they huddle tightly under the lamp, the lamp is too high and the chicks are cold. Therefore, move the lamp lower. Conversely, if the chicks are spread out away from the lamp, the lamp is too low and the chicks are trying to escape the heat. Ideally, the chicks will crowd against each other to stay warm but you don’t want them stacking on top of each other. If they do, it could lead to suffocation.

Ideally, the temperature in the brooding area should be 95-100 degrees for the first two weeks of life. After that, you can reduce the heat 5 degrees each week until chicks are a month old. As they become fully feathered, you can wean them from the heat lamp all together.

Ultimately the height of the heat lamp is dynamic and the ambient temperature of the room dictates how high the lamp should be. Therefore, be prepared to adjust the lamp height daily.

Waterer

Getting chicks off to a good start isn’t necessarily complicated. They have the same basic needs of any animal.

Clean water is important for day-old chicks and should be changed daily to ensure that it is clean and fresh. I use plastic chicken waterers I buy from a local farm store. The reservoir holds a gallon of water so it’s easy to handle and change daily. The base of these waterers is shallow so there’s no need to worry about chicks drowning.

For the first day or two, I’ll put a probiotic and electrolyte mixture in their water to help stave off any sickness the chicks may incur due to shipping stress. After a few days, I’ll just give them untreated water.

Sometimes, chicks don’t want to drink. To combat that, I’ll put colored marbles in the waterer. I think the chicks are curious about the color and shape and peck at them. When they peck, they get a taste of the water and begin drinking. Usually, marbles are only needed for a few days and the chicks figure out where their water comes from.

The Feeder

Like the waterer, I don’t use anything exotic for a feeder. For starters, I’ll use a 28 hole, flip top plastic feeder. These feeders are long enough for the chicks to line up side by side and feed comfortably.

When I first start the chicks, I’ll pile the feed high and leave the flip top open so the chicks can easily find it. I only do this for the first day or two, though. It won’t be long until the chicks are standing in the feed and scratching around. For some reason, the birds also have a tendency to poop in their feed. Therefore, once the birds find the feed, I close the lid so they’ll eat from the feeding holes.

As the chicks get bigger, I’ll sometimes opt for a bigger feeder so that they never run out of feed.

Shavings

Good bedding is essential for chick health and well being. The baby chickens are using a small area for their feeding and bedding areas and their bathroom as well. So they need an absorbent bedding medium to help maintain their health.

I use pine shavings. They are inexpensive, absorbent, readily available, and a single bale goes a long way. I’ve found that an initial thick layer in my brooder box will last for several days. As time goes on, I just add fresh shavings to the top of the existing base. After a couple of weeks, I’ll change the shavings out completely.

Feeding I try not to overthink feeding newborn chicks. Millions of dollars of research goes into to formulating livestock feed so I trust the people who mill the feed for me. When the chicks go in the brooder box, I start them off with 18 - 24% protein chick starter crumbles. Since chicks are growing fast, they need a high protein feed.

To teach them how to eat and where to eat from I’ll put a couple of boiled eggs sliced in half on top of their feed. I think they peck the hard boiled yolk out of curiosity because of its bright color. This spurs on their feeding instinct and it won’t take long for them to start eating their crumbles.

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