You did it! Congratulations! Raising baby chicks is a very exciting time that can be a little scary if you’re not prepared (or as prepared as you can be). Don’t worry, many of us have gone before you learning the right way to do things. Some of this was the easy way and some was the hard way. Starting out with your new fluffy babies, I would stick to the book. You can always tweak your process later.
First things first, unpack your little guys and gals. If you ordered mail order, those little babies may have traveled a few days. Either way, local pickup or mail order, chicks can get stressed and when you’re brand new, stress can cause some bigger issues. Hopefully, you set up their brooder before your chicks arrived. Check each chick separately. You’re looking for leg/beak issues, paste butt (doesn’t have to mean a disaster but gently clean them up and keep an eye out), and overall wellbeing.
Feeding
When you’re going through you brand new babies, dip each one’s beak into the water dish so they know where to hydrate. If you are using a chick electrolyte solution, make sure you follow the mixing directions. If the mixture is too concentrated, it can overwhelm their little kidneys and lead to death. Make sure your chicks water dish is full and top off frequently. You can go ahead and put your chick starter feed out as well. The chicks will check this out on their own. (I give both my meat chickens and egg layers the same chick starter to start with and then transition the meat chickens to broiler feed around 4 weeks. Broiler feed has more protein, and again, too much protein too early can lead to kidney damage in very young chickens.) Starting out, you may only need one chick feeding tray and waterer. However, as your chicks get bigger, make sure you add more if needed to avoid needless pecking and injury.
Brooder
When you set up your brooder, you basically need some walls, a floor, bedding, a heat source, and feeding supplies. For the actual brooder, we use troughs but for overflow, we’ve taped together card board boxes, lined them with garbage bags and covered them in bedding. Doesn’t have to be fancy, this is a temporary home. For bedding, I recommend starting out with pellet bedding or large shavings. You may want to put paper towels down over your bedding for the first few days until your chicks figure out that it isn’t food. We had a meat chick try to eat the bedding pellets and that did not end well. Take the paper towels out after a few days so your chicks can work on walking around and strengthening their legs.
Heating
You need a heat source for your brooder. There are a couple options, heat lamp or radiant brooder. The heat lamp is cheaper but could potentially cause more harm. Make sure your clamp is stable and at the right height. If your clamp fails, and your heat lamp falls into your brooder, there’s a very serious risk for fire right in the middle of your baby chicks’ home. We use a heat lamp only for chicks, once they’re feathered, no more heat lamp again. I reinforce the clamp so if it did try to pop loose it can’t fall. I would love a radiant brooder as they mimic a mama hen. Your chicks can go back and forth from the heat source as they need rather than just having one temperature for the whole brooder.
If you use a heat lamp, I would set it up on one side of the brooder so the chicks can go to the other side if it get too warm. So how do you know how much heat you need? I recommend a clip-on or magnetic thermometer. With brand new chicks, start at 95 degrees Fahrenheit and move down by 5 degrees every week until your chicks are feathering out or your meeting your local temperature. You’ll know your chicks are happy if they’re up walking about, being adorable little chicks. If they’re piling on each other, they’re too cold and if they’re panting, they’re too hot. Be mindful, you may still need a heat source overnight depending on nighttime temperatures. And with that, I would recommend a red bulb if you go the heat lamp route. Who wants to try to sleep with a bright white light shining right in your face?
Hygiene
Baby chicks turn into toddlers real quick. They make messes, they kick shavings into their water and feed or just completely knock them over. You need to keep an eye as they grow that they’re not overcrowded, especially meat chickens as they will grow really fast. Clean up after them as needed. I find that a litter scooper works great and fill in new bedding as needed. Once your chicks are feathered, they can go to their forever home. They’ll keep each other warm on the roost bars at night. I never recommend heat sources in coops. Even in our Ohio winters, I just add extra bedding and give them warm water with apple cider vinegar and some cracked corn through the coldest days of winter and my ladies have done fine.
Thanks for stopping by!
Nicole