Raising Chicks

Two years ago when we started the process of buying a house, I had decided I wanted to raise a few chickens for us to have our own eggs.

Fast forward to April 2018, we were about 3 weeks out from finally closing on our dream home. My daughter and I go by Tractor Supply to pick up some dog food. We had looked at the baby chicks every time we had been in, so this visit was no different. They had a small variety of chicks that were about a week old. They had a sign on the gate around the chicks that said ” All chicks $1. Buy 4 get 2 free”. I almost bought them all. It is hard for me to pass up a good sale and we were so close to closing on our home that my excitement couldn’t be contained. I took a tally of everything we would need to start the chicks to be able to plead my case to my husband.

I bought the dog food and went straight to my husband’s shop to share what I had found! He asked legitimate questions like, “Where will we keep them?” & “How much will they cost?”. I had answers prepared for all of the questions. One thing I hadn’t thought of was how many we were getting. 

When we get back to Tractor Supply, I giddily walked back to where the chicks were to decide what we were going to buy. The employee asked how many I wanted and I said before I thought, “Twelve White Leghorns, six Rhode Island Reds, and six Amberlinks.” If I would’ve known what my husband’s facial expression would’ve been, I would have taken a picture, it was priceless. 

We gathered all of the other supplies we needed and I happily trotted to the check out line with my two chirping boxes!

Starting your chicks

Chicks need the same basic necessities as every other animal. Food, water, & shelter. It is fairly easy brooding chicks, but some precautions need to be noted.

Food

We started out chicks on Purina Organic Starter/Grower Crumbles, it is what they were feeding at the store so we figured it would be best to keep them on the same food. 

You don’t have to use this brand, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be organic. Most chick foods are fine as long as they are between 18%-22% protein.

We started out with a flip top feeder but quickly moved on to a round feeder that you use a mason jar to hold the feed. The flip top feeder was okay, but they seemed to make more of a mess with it and it was more difficult to fill up.

Water

I am going to be 100% honest with you on this one. You are going to be cleaning out waterers at least 1400 times a day. Though chicks are some of the cutest little things, they are very messy. They love scratching around through their bedding and sends shavings flying every where. We used small waterers that also used mason jars to start out with. They held enough water and were fairly easy to clean.

We also added electrolytes to our chicks water for the first few days to help them adjust to the move and all. You mix up one packet to one gallon of water and give it to them as you normally would water. When you give electrolytes, you also need to have a waterer with fresh, clean water so that they have a choice of the two.

This is the waterer we started out with.

Shelter

I started my girls in a large Rubbermaid tote, it was the biggest one I could find and worked very well for us for the first couple weeks.

The most important thing with brooding chicks is keeping them warm! The brood box needs to be about 95° for the first week of their lives. For each week after that you can drop the temperature down 5°. I kept a thermometer in the brood box to ensure that they were warm enough. You can watch them to tell if they are warm enough. If they are all huddled together, they are too cold, you need to move your light closer. If they are spread out as far from the light as possible, it is too hot in the box, move the light further away. 

You also need something in the bottom of the brood box, we used pine shavings because they were cheap and easy to clean.

After the girls were a couple weeks old, they were outgrowing their current brood box. So, I went to Wal-Mart and bought a kiddie pool and upgraded their home. We used some hardware cloth to go around the pool to keep them in a keep the dog at a safe distance from them.

To sum it all up

If you are considering buying some chicks of your own, I encourage you to do so! They are so much fun, they’re absolutely adorable, and they a great first step to self sufficiency! Thank you for stopping by and reading! As always, if you have any questions, feel free to comment below! 😉

-Ashley