Our Right to Self Reliance

     You’ve got your brooder set up and tested out; you’re back stocked on feed.  You’ve ordered your chicks and they will arrive any day.  Or, you’ve found some local chicks and today is the day you’ll pick them up.  Turn on the brooder the night before you get your chicks and fill the feeders with crumble.  Just before you leave to get the chicks, fill the waterers and add the vitamin and electrolyte powder according to the instructions on the package.  This way the water will be already warmed by the heat in the brooder—cold water is no good for baby chicks and won’t encourage them to drink.   Strictly speaking, chicks can go without food or water for 72 hours after hatching—but once they start drinking they must also eat.  Remember that they’ve likely already spent up to a day waiting at the hatchery, and at least a day in transport.  Check the thermometers in the brooder; the brooder temperature should be 95 degrees for the first week, and lowered five degrees every week thereafter.

If your chicks are coming in the mail, you may want to call your post office and find out what time they’ll arrive so you can be there to meet them.  Be sure and bring the number for the hatchery you ordered from with you.  The sooner you can get those babies under heat the better off they’ll be, and if they were stressed in transport it can literally be a matter of life and death.  Bouncing around in a mail truck for an extra few hours will only stress them more.  Open the box and count live chicks right there in the post office, preferably with a postal employee present.  If there are appreciable loses in the box, file a claim and call the hatchery immediately.  A thermos of very warm water with just a bit of honey in it (about a half a teaspoon to a pint or a half litre) can be very reviving to chicks.  If you see any chicks that are anything but bright and ready to go, dip their beaks (see below) in the warm honey water and check them again in about ten minutes.  They should have perked up considerably.  It’s also a good idea to bring some sort of heat source you can tuck in the box with you (see below).  If the chicks are cheeping loudly, it means they are cold not hungry or thirsty at this point. Get them warm and they’ll quiet right down…and get them home post haste.

A good transport box to use for local chick pick up is either a sturdy wooden box or a Styrofoam cooler.  Either must have air holes and a lid to keep heat in.  Some sort of heat source helps keep stress down; almost anything that will generate heat for a couple of hours will work.  A sack of rice that has been microwaved for a few minutes works really well, as does a sack of beans.  I’ve used hot baked potatoes and pocket hand warmer packs.  Whatever you use, make it hot and place it in the bottom of the box just before you leave, more to one side or corner so the chicks can get off it if it’s too warm for them.  Cover it with several layers of paper toweling or a hand towel or rag that you won’t mind having baby chicken poop on.

Whether you get you chicks through the mail or by driving to a local breeder, once you have them, get them home with all haste and into the brooder.  Avoid drafts, particularly cold drafts, and any unnecessary jostling.  Getting chilled can cause “pasting up” wherein a chick’s feces adhere to their fluffy little butts, effectively blocking elimination.  Not only can they die of it, other chicks are very likely to peck at the poopy butts because they look different and this can lead to mortal injury for the victim and a habit of cannibalism for the perpetrators.  Best to do everything one can to keep the issue from coming up. Pasted up chicks must have their bottoms very, very carefully washed with warm water to soak the poop off; I’ve personally had good results using half pretty hot water and half hydrogen peroxide.  NO SOAP.  If you must do this, remember that chicks are very delicate; they can break when they struggle and if you pull on a bit of poop you can pull out down or even tear skin.  Soaking is much better. A cotton swab can be helpful for working the poop loose.  If they are badly pasted up, do expect them to poop as soon as they are able.  Once a pasted up chick is cleaned up and dried off as well as possible, put it back in the brooder but keep a sharp eye out; it is uncommon for only one chick in a whole batch to have gotten chilled, and a chick that has been cleaned up may paste up again.  Just rewash it; the situation should resolve itself in the next couple of days.

Once you have the babies at the brooder, take each chick out of the box one at a time.  If you can sit the box inside the brooder to transfer them out, it will be safer.  Remember that baby chickens come with some instincts that help keep them alive had they been born under normal circumstances.  The first would the instinct to duck and run from anything hawk-shaped moving overhead.  Another would the instinct to creep under something warm…like your hand.  Introduce you hand to the box careful, keeping it kind of closed and not spread open to grab so it does not in any way resemble a hawk.  Once your hand is on about the same level as the chicks, kind of cup it, palm down, and chicks may well run under it.  Slide a couple of fingers under one chick and, grasping it gently, lift it slowly out of the box and directly into the brooder.  They can be real little furry grasshoppers and are surprisingly strong, so be careful; use your other hand to kind of “spot” the operation, ready to help catch the chick if it struggles free.  While you have ahold of the chick, take it over to a waterer, tip it down and dip its beak well into the water (you may have to get a careful finger on the back of its little head to help guide it), then lift the chick to a normal position again.  Normally a mama hen would model this for them, but you must stand in and do manual training.  Be gentle but insistent; you can tell you’ve pulled it off when the chick suddenly lifts it head and looks very thoughtful.  Chickens have no peristalsis; when they drink, they basically fill their beaks and tip their heads up and the water runs down their throats.  Once you’ve gotten the thoughtful look, sit the chick down at the waterer, and get another one.  Keep repeating the process till all chicks are transferred and have had a drink.  This also helps them to identify the waterer.

Chicks are naturally curious; they’ll peck at anything that looks interesting.  They may well start in eating on their own, and if you have a group of chicks if two or three of them are pecking at the crumble, you may expect them all to figure it out in fairly short order.  If after perhaps a half an hour you don’t see chicks pecking at the crumble, reach in remembering the hawk overhead response wired into them and make excited noises like a mama hen would (kuck kuck! kuckkuckkuck! kuck! …you get the idea) while tapping and stirring the crumble.  You should get some takers.  You might also put something interesting in the crumble that is differently coloured…a bit of oatmeal, finely chopped parsley, even a couple of cat’s eye marbles.  You can do the same with the water if chicks are not returning to the waterer and drinking themselves; you may have to re-do the beak dipping ritual.

There you go!  They should motor along nicely now as long as they are warm, have water and food, and are not molested.  Keep an ear out for distressed cheeping.  If they are shouting, something is up.  In a week or so you can start offering them more interesting things to eat, like bits of apple or pieces of strawberries or kiwi.  You can also drop by a pet store and pick up a few crickets, meal worms or red worms to start teaching them about bugs.  They’ll grow faster than you might expect.

Any questions?

Trackback URI | Comments RSS