Brood Baby Chicks This Spring

My name is Robert Plamondon. My wife Karen and I raise about 2,000 baby chicks every year on our free-range egg farm in Oregon's Coast Range. We spent years learning the best ways to raise baby chicks. I hope I can get you up to speed faster than that.

Baby chick season starts around March 1, with chicks arriving in feed stores. They can also be bought from hatcheries by mail year-round, though the main season is January through June. Hatchery chicks are mailed in multiples of 25 chicks in special chick boxes that allow them to huddle together for warmth. (This works better than you'd think.)

Baby chicks don't have enough body heat to keep themselves warm until they are several weeks old. You need to provide the extra heat they need with a "brooder" -- usually involving a heat lamp.

Beginners usually start with overhead heat lamps, but homemade box brooders like the one in the photo are also good. Use a heat-lamp fixture designed specifically for brooding. These have a wire loop at the back to hang them by,and a wire guard on the front so that, if the fixture falls to the floor, it will roll so the lamp won't be pointing straight down and setting the floor on fire. Avoid clamp lights: most of them are cheap junk. Always use fixtures with porcelain sockets with heat lamps. Let's all be careful out there.

Start with the heat lamp about three feet off the floor. Run the heat lamp overnight before you get your chicks: the brooder isn't ready unless the floor in the heated area is warm and dry to the touch.

Floor drafts can chill the chicks even in the presence of the heat lamp, so watch out for that.

The lamp needs to heat up an area that can easily hold all the chicks. If the lamp is too low, the warmed area will be too small and the chicks on the outside will constantly struggle to get into the middle. It's much better to have the lamp too high than too low. The lamp shouldn't keep the entire brooder area warm, though: the chicks need places where they can cool off, too.

The idea of brooding chicks in the house may sound good, but after a few days the smell, dust, and little chicks flying out of their brooder area makes the exercise a nightmare. Plan ahead and have an appropriate area prepared, one that they can grow into, with at least half a square foot of floor space per chick. It will look like a lot at first, but chicks grow fast. Use wood shavings on the floor to absorb poop and spilled water.

Buy quart-jar waterers to use for the first few days. These present small amounts of water and the chicks aren't likely to blunder into them and get soaked and chilled. Glass canning jars work better than the horrible plastic jars they try to sell at the feed store. Just buy the bases. After a week, move up to gallon waterers.

For feed, buy medicated (gasp!) chick starter. The medication is like training wheels for beginning chicken people. You can give it up later, but it prevents coccidiosis, which is a disease you don't even want to know about at this stage. For the first few days, place a single sheet of newspaper on the floor and pour some chick feed onto it. Chickens are programmed to scratch at their feed with their feet and to eat off the ground. Indulge them for a few days before you introduce them to the wonders of troughs or hanging feeders. If you use the cute little chick troughs, be aware that they will outgrow them in a week or two.

Keep the chicks housed where pets and little kids can't get at them,and so they can't fly away from the warmth.

Want more brooding info? I've written a whole book on the topic! Check out the Amazon link below or visit my web site at NortonCreekPress.com to kick the tires on my book and check out my other helpful chicken pages.