Keep Chickens!: Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs and Other Small Spaces (14 page)

Don’t hang the lamp dead center over the cage, but over to one side. You need to give the chicks room to escape the lamp if they are feeling too hot. You will want to regularly observe and regulate the heat so that you don’t accidentally roast your chicks. If the chicks are always huddled together directly under the lamp, the brooder temperature is too cold. If the chicks stay as far away from the lamp as they can, clinging to the walls on the opposite side of the brooder, the temperature is too warm.

Your chicks need to have plenty of cool, fresh water to drink. Put the chicks’ water dispenser in the cage over to one corner, away from the direct path of the heat lamp. If the water in the dispenser becomes too hot, the chicks will not drink. Chicks’ fragile physiques are susceptible to immediate dehydration without access to fresh, cool drinking water. Discard the water from the dispenser and refill it with clean water twice daily. The chicks poop everywhere, all the time, and they make no exceptions for their watering tray.

Place a chick feeder in the cage. The feeder is usually a stainless-steel feeding dish, though plastic feeders are available (plastic is a bit easier to clean). The feeders can be either a shallow round dish with a top cover containing several half dollar–size holes, or a narrow trough topped lengthwise and center with a rod that turns in place. The purpose of the holes in the round feeder and the teetering rod in the trough feeder is to keep the chicks out of their food dish. Without the protective top and rod, the chicks, not knowing any better, would stand in their dishes and poop and sleep.

A chick feeder gives chicks access to their feed while at the same time keeping them from getting
into
the feed.

What goes in the chick feeder? Chick feed, of course. Chick feed has a unique nutritional makeup designed just for growing chicks. Chick feed is ground up so that it’s easy for the chicks to eat and digest. It comes in two forms: “mash” and “crumble.” Mash and crumble each look like their name implies. Commercial prepared chick feeds, which are available at feed stores, have all of the necessary nutrients needed by your chick flock.

Chick feed comes in two varieties: medicated and nonmedicated. Medicated feed prevents chick coccidiosis and is essential in larger farm flocks of chickens. However, with only three or four chicks, you have control over the cleanliness of their habitat. Disease in your small flock is not as likely to occur as in larger, farm-size flocks. I’ve always raised my city chicks on nonmedicated feed and have never lost a chick to sickness.

Poultry Tribune,
circa 1940.

When your chicks are about three weeks old, install a small perch or dowel into one end of the brooder. Your fledglings need to practice roosting much like a kid needs to ride a tricycle before trying out a bike. Placing a dowel into the brooder early in their lives encourages the chicks to give roosting a chance. If you see that the chicks aren’t getting the idea to jump up on the perch themselves, give them a hand. Pick them up and hold them over the perch until they grip it. Gently let go when they do. They will fall over a few times, but like a kid on a bike, once they learn how to roost, they’ll never forget. And there’s nothing cuter than several-weeks-old chicks, still all fuzzy and peeping, clustered on the perch together!

Put the chicks in the brooder as soon as you bring them home. Promptly give them water to drink. Initially, mix a little sugar (1 teaspoon per quart) into the water. This mixture gives them instant energy and helps reduce their stress level (imagine being locked up and bounced around in a dark cardboard box for a while). A little serving of sugared water is especially important if you have received your chicks by mail, as they will be thirsty and stressed from their long journey. Once your chicks have had some time to adjust, provide them with fresh water without adding sugar. The sweetened water is a one-time serving to the chicks and should not be continued after the first watering.

The first day and night with the chicks will be magical. Well, it’s magical for the people; I imagine the chicks have a different take on the experience. They are frightened, awestruck, and totally dependent on you. They are fuzzy, clumsy, and curious. They are full of life but weigh little more than a heavy paper napkin.

Your new chicks will look fragile and wobbly. Their tiny claws will fall through the holes of the wire flooring. Don’t worry — chicks are actually tougher than they look. Soon they’ll get stronger and more accustomed to their new home. In just a day, the baby chicks will be running from side to side and over the wire flooring without losing a step. They will eat, drink, and sleep like old pros.

And they will peep. They peep all the time like chatty canaries on caffeine. They peep when they eat. They peep when they poop. Peep when other chicks are peeping. Peep when no one else is peeping. It is a veritable peep show (bad peeping pun indeed). They stop peeping only when they sleep, which they do suddenly without warning. Sleeping comes naturally and abruptly to chicks. To sleep, the baby chicks simply fall down wherever they are standing and peeping, and they close their tiny chick eyes.

I’ll never forget the first time I held a baby chick. It was — what else — magical. The chick got really warm in my cupped hands and fell asleep with her tiny head resting on my fingertips. The first time I saw a chick asleep in the cage, I had such a scare. I thought she was dead. She was lying face down, wings slightly opened and splayed away from her body, looking lifeless. I tentatively touched her through the wire and she popped up, peeping, and ran to the food tray while pooping. Whew. If you see your chicks lying this way, don’t panic. They may scare you to death the first time you see them lying there on the bottom of the brooder like a cottonball carcass, but they are probably just taking a quick nap.

Get used to seeing your chicks sprawled facedown in the poultry power nap position. They spend most of their first few weeks either sleeping or eating. The abundant rest and food fuels the chicks’ physique through an amazing growth spurt. They’ll go from a few ounces to a few pounds by the time they’re eight to fourteen weeks old.

When can the chicks move out to the coop? Depending on their breed and variety, chicks will be ready to begin their pullet rite of passage out of the brooder and into the coop at anywhere from three to four months of age. The basic rule is: Wait until your pullets have all their feathers (that is, they’re fully feathered) before moving them out to the coop.

The move to the coop should be undertaken gradually. Think of young pullets as greenhouse seedlings. Seedlings raised indoors are never brought out and immediately thrown into the soil. Instead, they are gradually acclimated to the outdoors over a brief period (known in gardening parlance as
hardening off).
It’s the same for your young chickens. When the weather has become consistently warm, take the birds outside in their brooder. Leave the brooder in the henhouse for a few hours, then bring it back inside for the night. Repeat the next two days. On days three through six, open the brooder and let the pullets wander freely around their new digs, but continue to bring them in for the night.

After a week of this careful treatment, your pullets should be accustomed to the temperature and décor change in their habitat. Having had a chance to scratch in the dirt and eat bugs, they’ll be itching to move into their new abode. Let them.

Nobody wants a sick chick. Once a baby chick is sick, its chances for survival are not as good as if it had remained healthy through its chickhood. The best cure is prevention. First, pick chicks that aren’t already sick. See
chapter 6
for more information about that. Second, keep the cage clean, provide the chicks with fresh water twice a day, and keep an eye on their behavior. I bring lawn chairs into the basement where my chicks live and sit and watch them a little bit each day. By getting accustomed to your chicks’ looks and habits, you are more likely to become aware of anything that doesn’t look right.

Poultry Tribune,
circa 1940.

Possible signs of discomfort or illness in chicks may include watery eyes, waterier-than-usual droppings, listless behavior, and not eating or drinking. Chicks (and chickens) are susceptible to waste-borne disease and bacteria. If you are really watching your chicks, you’ll notice that they walk around their cage pecking at and tasting big bites of their own droppings (remember, chickens do not have good senses of smell or taste). Keep the cage very clean to decrease the chicks’ chances of consuming their own waste.

By watching your chicks carefully each day, you can pre-vent problems before they happen. An uncared for, unwatched chick could die from simply pasting up (see below). How will you know if your chicks are unhappy for some reason? You will hear them. They will peep and cheep more incessantly than they usually do. They may have run out of water or food (they never should). They may be too cold or too hot. Perhaps they are pasting up or just not feeling well. Watch your chicks diligently the first few weeks of their lives. They are pretty much helpless and rely totally on you for their food, water, warmth, and health.

If your chicks are ill and home remedies are not helping, you can call the feed store where you purchased them for some advice, or contact a local avian veterinary practitioner.

Pasting up occurs when a chick’s droppings cluster up and adhere to its behind (the vent), preventing the chick from passing new droppings. It’s the chicken version of constipation. A chick can paste up if it eats cedar shavings (a good reason not to use them for bedding) or if it doesn’t have enough water to drink (chicks and chickens drink surprisingly large quantities of water).

If you see that a chick is pasting up, pick it up and use a damp, warm washcloth to gently remove the material from the chick’s rear end. Try not to get the chick too wet with the washcloth or it can catch draft and a cold.

Watch your chicks daily to make sure they are clean and happy. Pasting up can cause your chick discomfort or, if not promptly noticed, death.

When your chicks start to resemble fat, feathered pigeons, they are no longer chicks but pullets. They will be pullets until they are one year old. Then they’ll be hens. Pullets and laying hens have different feed needs than do chicks. You can get all the feeds necessary for your chicks, pullets, and laying hens at your local feed store.

The bigger chickens are, the more feed they eat. Those little chick feeders aren’t going to do the job of feeding your ravenous pullets and hens. To keep food plentiful and always available, use a galvanized stainless-steel cylindrical feeder. These can hold several pounds of feed. Suspend the feeder from the coop or henhouse rafters so its lip is about even with the flat of your chickens’ backs when they are standing. Keeping the feeder raised helps keep the food in the dispensing tray clean.