how-to-raise-a-chicken

Chicks that are hatched inside an incubator must stay inside the incubator for a couple of days. Don't get too excited to take them out. Give them some time to realize that they are already hatchlings and have to cope with their environment.

Birds like quails, pheasants and chickens can survive for three days without any source of water or food.

You can take the hatchlings out after a day or 24 hours from the time that they hatched. Now they can be placed in a brooder for 6 weeks.

Here are some things to keep in mind in order to raise a baby chicken.

There are three important things to do upon hatching of the baby chicks - brooder, feeding and prevent them from drowning.

Brooder
This is like a baby chick's second pit stop after life inside an incubator. A brooder is sort of an incubator but is bigger. It can be made or bought. The thing about brooders is that you have to provide your own heat lamp and make sure that the temperature is adjustable.

Before putting the chicks inside the brooder, you should have it set at an environment that the temperature is not less than 90 degrees. A 95-degree heat can be a start. You maintain the heat lamp until the 6th week. From a 90-95 degree heat, you can decrease the heat by 5 degrees every week until it reaches about 60-65 degrees by the 6th week.

Feeding

Once you put them out of the incubator, you have to make sure that there is already available food and water inside the brooder. Never let these two essentials run out. They should always have something to put their beaks into.

Babies must be fed with dry mash. Pheasant and chicken babies love baby chick mash. Solid food like grains is unsuitable. Grits aren't necessary when you choose to use mash feed. You can buy all these in a feed store.

Drowning Prevention

Receptacles can be life threatening to baby chicks especially during the first week of inhabitation inside the brooder. If they are so active, they can drown themselves inside those receptacles.

Chickens can eat almost everything from meat to vegetables. You can give them dog food and they"ll peck it with full gusto. You can give them pig food and they"ll eat it without hesitation.

Chickens are cleaners of garbage tidbits. They can even wipe out every insect, worm, or anything little and more vulnerable than they are. The good thing about raising chickens in your backyard is that it needs no feeding qualifications other than vitamins and boosters.

Grains can also be fed to your chickens. Scraps of food bits and peelings can also be fed. You see, feeding isn't that hard for as long as you save some of those leftovers for your poultry to feed on. Chickens are also intelligent for they know when the bucket of treats is ready for lunch.