People often ring me for advice on every possible subject to do with chicks and keeping hens. Now the chick season is here and interest in the subject is high again.
Let me try to head off another round of calls and add some pictures with explanations of what I do with my chicks and how.
You can add your own experiences and thoughts in the comments. Good reading for others too.
Newly hatched chicks I take out of the incubator two or three at a time.
Before closing the lid I spray a little warm water into the incubator.
For the chicks to dry off I have a little box, once a rabbit's travel cage. In the bottom there is a piece of fabric and a handful of fine sand (limestone grit).
As a drinker, one left over from the budgerigars.
The warmth under the lamp is 35 C. If the warmth suits the chicks, they doze peacefully. If it is too hot (the lamp too close), they try to hide behind the drinker or somewhere as far from the lamp as possible.
After a couple of hours, when the chicks want to bustle about, I lift them into a larger box. For that I have a transparent plastic box, so it can be washed and is nicer for the children to look into. For warmth there is a small desk lamp, and by adjusting its height you can adjust the warmth in the box.
In the first days the chicks are calm and content when the temperature directly under the lamp is at least 28 C. If it is hot they creep to the other end of the box for a nap. If it is cold they say so loudly, climb on top of one another to get nearer the lamp or try to creep under each other for warmth.
Week old chicks I move out to the shed with the hens, but certainly into a separate run. Because at a week old even ten chicks can ruin the air in a room completely, despite changing the bedding and cleaning twice a day.
Under the shed roof ones this small certainly need a heat lamp, because in early spring it is relatively cool there. I hang the lamp on a chain so it can be raised as time goes on. In the first days they spend much of their time in the warm under the lamp. Later, though, they enjoy the large space and freedom, dashing from corner to corner, climbing and flying onto everything they can reach.
Under the shed roof there is also a larger feeder and drinker. Chicks this small have no feeding limits; food and drink have to be in front of them all the time. And the quantity ones this tiny can destroy is quite unbelievable.
For food I give them boiled egg only in the first days. Later GMO free complete chick feed. Alongside that apple, pieces of cabbage leaf, sometimes porridge with egg and, say, tiny sesame seeds and sea buckthorn oil. Or curd, minced meat and the like.
When the weather turns warmer, I carry the chicks outside in a bucket into the sun for a couple of hours and then back under the shed roof.
