What You Need to Know Before Buying Chicks
Ordering chicks for your backyard coop? Easy. But caring for them requires planning and foresight. Here's what to do
I am a freelance editorial and wedding photographer and Houzz contributor based out of Hershey, PA. Come visit me at 'A Nest for All Seasons' where I write about design, photography and modern garden living!
I am a freelance editorial and wedding photographer and Houzz contributor... More »
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You might not think of baby chicks in the dead of winter, while the ground is frozen over and icicles are dangling from the eaves. Cold as it may be, winter is the time for ordering chicks, particularly if you are going to order rare-breed chicks online. If you are going to purchase basic White Leghorns or Rhode Island Reds from your local farm supply store, feel free to wait until spring, but for the rest of us, the time is now!
Once your chicks arrive, you will need to have an interim place for them to stay; you cannot throw them directly into the coop. Here's how to care for your baby chicks in their infancy, "teenage" months and adulthood.
Designs for your hens: Chicken Coops Rule the Roost
Once your chicks arrive, you will need to have an interim place for them to stay; you cannot throw them directly into the coop. Here's how to care for your baby chicks in their infancy, "teenage" months and adulthood.
Designs for your hens: Chicken Coops Rule the Roost
When you buy chicks online, you are most likely purchasing a rare breed that cannot be found locally. You need to place your order now because the inventory starts to run out on the most beautiful breeds the closer we get to spring. Getting your order in early ensures that you will get the breeds you want. The chicks will arrive in spring, and they will be literally a day old.
Before ordering chicks, first make sure that your neighborhood statutes and city zoning laws allow you to raise chickens. Asking your neighbors about their preferences is also a nice gesture when considering raising a flock.
Before ordering chicks, first make sure that your neighborhood statutes and city zoning laws allow you to raise chickens. Asking your neighbors about their preferences is also a nice gesture when considering raising a flock.
Chicks are shipped in cardboard boxes across the country as soon as they are hatched. As crazy as that seems, the chicks arrive happy and healthy.
When planning a temporary home for chicks, note the commercial shipping boxes used. Made out of cardboard, the boxes give little chick feet something to grip onto. You don't want to place chicks in a slippery metal or plastic container, because their feet and toes will not develop properly. You will also need a simple heat lamp or very warm room for the chicks at first.
When planning a temporary home for chicks, note the commercial shipping boxes used. Made out of cardboard, the boxes give little chick feet something to grip onto. You don't want to place chicks in a slippery metal or plastic container, because their feet and toes will not develop properly. You will also need a simple heat lamp or very warm room for the chicks at first.
Take a peek inside the shipping box and notice the thin and soft bedding material. When designing your chicks' first home, choose the smallest pine shavings or even hamster bedding at first. Stay away from cedar chips, as these can harm the chicks' lungs.
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| While chicks will eventually move outdoors to open grazing, it is a terrible place for them at first. Although chicks survive just fine outdoors with their mother in nature, "orphan" chicks will not survive out in the open by themselves, without warmth and protection. |
The second worst place for your chicks is the coop, with its mature chickens, thick bedding and open water pans. They can drown in the water and get trapped under bedding. Mature chickens will even peck at the babies.
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| Baby chicks might also begin pecking at one another. If this happens, it is key to separate the injured chick. So be prepared to have several spaces indoors and then outdoors to house the chicks. |
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A moveable chicken tractor is the perfect setup for integrating chicks into the outdoors. After they sleep indoors at night, you can let them into the guarded portion of the tractor each day. The adult chickens can roam around in the grass surrounding the tractor, allowing both flocks to get used to each other.
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| A triangular design works well for this adjustment period as well. If you will be raising new chicks each year, you might want to consider this design. |
If you have a small coop, try letting the adult chickens out in the morning, placing the chicks inside, and then switching at night. Chicks can get used to the coop without being in danger from the adults.
Once chicks are able to jump into nesting boxes and up a small ladder or ramp, they can start visiting the "grown-up" coop during the day.
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| Placing nesting boxes on levels allows the smaller chickens to get used to flying up into the boxes, while still leaving room for the adults to lay their eggs in the higher boxes. |
Simple ramps can allow "teenager" chickens to go just about anywhere. A simple plank design with small cross pieces can allow small chickens to get into and out of the coop, feeding areas and nesting areas.
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by Avant Garden
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| A fenced-in area with an enclosed coop also works well to integrate younger and adult chickens. As the chickens get used to each other, they have separate space to move in, and fighting is kept to a minimum. |
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| In your roosting setup, make sure there is more than enough room for both adult and younger chickens. If there is limited space, the adults will attack the smaller chickens when they try to roost. Multiples bars or multiple roosting spaces solve this problem. |
While natural predators and adult chickens are often the greatest threat to your chicks, a housecat can cause problems as well. Housecats are typically uninterested in chicks and are intimidated by full-grown chickens, but teenage chickens are the right age for them to chase. Make sure housecats are introduced to the chickens early, so they can get used to them, but don't trust them around chicks between 3 and 6 weeks old.
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by Janiczek Homes
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| To recap, while buying buying chicks at the farm store or online might be a simple task, their care once they arrive at your doorstep is more involved. Make sure you have a simple, warm setup when they first arrive. If you have adult chickens and other animals, create separate spaces for the new chicks. Be wary of dangers such as open water pans, deep bedding and housecats. Nip any chicken bullying in the bud immediately. While raising chicks is more work than buying pullets, it is certainly fun and well worth the effort. More: Chicken Coops Rule the Roost The Scoop on Chicken Coops |
Ideabook updated on Jan. 25, 2013.
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That orange electrical cord is now gone. We got the coop plans from Country Living.
@alexandrak87 Chicks are tougher than you think and mine have always arrived safely via shipping. It is impossible for most of the country to locally source rare breed chickens, so online ordering with a reputable company is the best way to procure them. Aside from visiting a farm and buying chicks locally, chicks will have been shipped at some point no matter where you buy them.
Chickens are surprisingly clean & the hens are quiet. I really don't understand the objection to them in so many neighborhoods. They actually make better neighbors than most dogs or cats. I love my chickens and the eggs they lay are so much tastier and healthier than the ones from the corporate chicken farms where the chickens are all crammed together with very little room to move. If you think that 'free range' on the carton in the store means the chickens live on vast green pastures, sadly, you are mistaken.
Please, if you care about the chickens, don't discourage people from getting some of their own. They provide healthy eggs for your family and if more people keep their own chickens, maybe some of those horrible overcrowded chicken farms will shut down. Once grown, chickens require very little work and raising them is a great experience for children.
Diane
I'm longing for an opportunity to use something chicken related in my removable wallcoverings. In the meantime, I'll just dream about it through some of these fun designs you feature and others in this blog post: http://www.casartcoverings.com/casartblog/showrooms-with-style/
Cyan used a Chicken Coop theme at their Highpoint Showroom.
Rooster artwork is by artist Laura Trevey.
I too am considering raising chickens and I found this site to be helpful and the sell sexed chicks.
http://www.mypetchicken.com/
I want to have 3 hens and plan to sell and give away any extra eggs that I have. Still researching too.
Male chicks are killed after sexing by gassing, suffocation in large bins, or being shoved into grinders. Some are actually used as shipping material to cushion the females, as if they were so much bubble wrap.
Buying live animals online for shipping and expecting sunshine and roses is absurd. You don't see the boxes of chicks that arrive dead and dying for postal service employees to deal with. They are so inexpensive that the "growers" still make money.
Imagine the terror those chicks go through...the cold and heat, the dark, no food and water, frequent traffic and weather delays...what on earth makes you think this is acceptable?
Instead of supporting the agribusiness industry, why not adopt rescued chickens from a farm sanctuary? There are many chickens needing homes that have been abandoned by farmers, ranchers, and homeowners who didn't do their homework and decided keeping chickens was too hard. It isn't Disneyland.
These are llving beings, entitled to care and respect.
See www.animalplace.org for more info., and http://www.upc-online.org/backyard/120423hatcheries_ship_chicks_as_packing.html
A few things I tell newbies is know your local laws, because some areas allow a back yard folk and some do not. And we use construction cloth which is a fine mesh wire, under the coop and up the walls three feet because this keeps critters from chewing thru the wood into the coop.
We also bury construction cloth two feet into the ground around the fenced area for the same reason, and the add regular wire mesh fencing. If you live in an area with hawks, owls etc you may need a covered mesh ceiling over the entire open area. Also helps if you have raccoon's since they will climb into fenced areas and into the coop.
We have a small solar panel that runs a light inside the coop which we set on a timer so come late fall into early sprint it comes on from 5-8am and 5-8 pm. Light is essential for us here in the Sierras for egg production come winter. And because we get cold weather I make an effort to make hot oatmeal for my girls come morning.
Also consider heirloom breeds, since we need to keep these breeds going. We love our Jersey Giants and French Maron who lay eggs that have shells the colour of dark chocolate. Then we LOVE our golden colour Buff Orpington hens because they are so mellow and make great mothers. Rhode Island Reds are also favorites of ours. And because we love the light blue and green colours of easter eggs we recommend Araucanas. We no longer have white Leghorns because they are to flighty.
Love knowing what our hens eat, because we love organic eggs.
We also feed them all the kitchen scraps, and they love to stir up the compost bins for goodies so we spend $10 for a bag of local organic layer pellets and $10 for a fifty lbs bag of organic non GMO cracked corn as a treat and these last three months. When you consider a dozen organic free range eggs cost $4-6 dollars in our are of California, our twelve hens are a bargain as far as cost of eggs.
We have a few friends who have multi purpose hens (eggs/meat) and they do humane slaughter and have great tasting chicken meat, although we are vegetarian/vegan leaning ourselves.
We also support adopting chickens that have been rescued from bad conditions. Many farm sanctuary groups need families who will adopt chickens and allow them to live out their lives in peace and kindness.
If you keep the coop clean, fresh straw in the nesting boxes and on the floor, (which we put in the compost pile once a month) you should have no fly or other pest issues. Same with the chicken area outside the coop. San Francisco, Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Berkeley, and numerous other areas of California that are not rural, allow for hens in the backyard and usually no more than twelve. Roosters are to loud unless you have a Bantam rooster which are not as loud. Give me a Bantam rooster over barking dogs any day.
Wanted to note that when I go outside in the morning Goldie my Buff Orpington comes running to me, sits down, and waits for me to pick her up. I pick her up and hold her as I walked around the yard to check on the garden, fill the bird baths, get the mail and then sit down to read. She is like a good friend. The other hens are also nice. The small Bantam mix looks like a chocolate puff ball.
And when hens run they look like little old ladies running to the bus stop with shopping bags in both hands.
I love my hens, for their eggs and their companionship, their bug control and the fact that they eat every single weed out of our vegetable beds and scratch in their own composted poo to produce magnificently fat tomatoes, peppers and all manner of veggies. We have a Buff Orp, a RIR, a Barred Rock, an Ameraucana, and a Black sex-link.
I love taking care of my chickens and I don't consider it hard at all. They provide fresh healthy eggs for me and my friends and neighbors. I like knowing that the more people I supply with eggs, the fewer eggs will be bought from the large chicken farms where the chickens live in crowded, unhealthy, inhumane conditions. Put it down if you want to but I think the backyard chicken 'craze' (as someone called it) is great and should be supported MORE. Better living conditions for chickens, healthy eggs for us. How can that not be a good 'thang'?
Anyone who thinks chickens smell, or are dirty or noisy, attract rats or any of the other misconceptions I just read, please visit my blog: www.fresh-eggs-daily.com. I show it like it is - and that is a beautiful, fulfilling, satisfying way to feed our family and provide entertainment and stress relief. I have hatched my own chicks, bought locally AND ordered online and I applaud ANYONE who does the same!
Way to go Amy! I love that Houzz printed this article.
Lisa
Fresh Eggs Daily
www.fresh-eggs-daily.com
www.facebook.com/FreshEggsDaily