Bike Riding

Baby Chicks

My husband started building our coop a few weeks ago, and it has since been assembled at the back of our garage. We still need to finish the coop with some paint and shingles. We are in the process of creating a fenced-in run to keep our chickens safe. Once everything is completed, I will create a DIY article, but here’s a peak at the coop and run for now.

We could not decide whether we should get adult hens, 6 week chicks, or baby chicks. We had to weigh the pros and cons of each.

Adult Hens

Pros: Free from my cousin, already layers, able to be put outdoors immediately, could defend themselves against cats

Cons: Not used to our children, would have to finish coop immediately

6 Week Chicks

Pros: Almost ready for outdoors but gives us time to finish coop, guaranteed female, able to acclimate to children and defend themselves from cats a bit

Cons:

Baby Chicks

Pros: would acclimate to our children and give us time to finish coop

Cons: Need to protect from cats, need to keep indoors for a long time, require more attention

We were pretty convinced we were going to take home 6 week old chicks. But when we got to the farm to pick out our chickens, we saw those baby chicks and were absolutely smitten. I cannot believe how cute a baby chick is! So although the breeder could not guarantee they were all females, she did promise that we could switch out a male for a female if needed. Turns out she is my daughter’s band teacher; and she brings her chicks to school, so it will be very convenient to make a switch if needed.

We ended up getting 1 Cream Laybar, 2 Black Copper Marans, and 2 Lavendar Orpingtons.

The Cream Laybar will be a heavy layer, providing us with blue eggs. She is named Fearless because she will let anyone hold her and was named by our Swiftie.

The Black Copper Marans won’t lay as many eggs; but when they do, their eggs are delicious and a dark brown color. These birds are also good eating birds. They are named Road Runner and Trolley because they run around like crazy and don’t much like being held. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that we got them knowing we could eat them.

The Lavendar Orpingtons will lay light brown eggs and are named Peep and Cheep. They are so fluffy!

The chicks are now 14 days old and growing so quickly! We have brought them out to their coop and to range a little bit under a watchful eye. But most of the time they stay in their bin locked upstairs, out of sight from our preying cats.

Chicks need a heat lamp, bulb, food, water, and wood shavings. We struggled a bit to get the right temperature in the bin. They need to be kept at 95 degrees at birth. Each week after that, the chicks can tolerate 5 degrees cooler.

The heat lamp was easily making it much hotter than 90 degrees, so we needed to keep moving the heat lamp farther away until their home was at the exact temperature. We finally found the perfect distance by using a clamp to secure the heat lamp to our counter top and monitoring the thermometer. If you want to make it easier to adjust the distance of the heat lamp, consider getting a lamp stand.

We had to clean their bin at least once a day. I recommend having a few bins available so you can easily keep their homes clean. You can transfer the chicks to a clean bin, spray out the old bin, and set it out to air dry so a clean bin is ready for the next day.

The chicks quickly grew out of the bin we were using. I was prepared to buy a bigger bin, but Graham is handy so he just built a basic box for the chicks with some spare wood he had laying around. The kids helped decorate with logs, so the chicks have quite the home.

Although their new home is very nice, I would have preferred a bigger bin because I could have used it for storage and it would have been easier to keep clean. Instead of dumping the wood shavings, we have to scoop the little pieces of poop out of the box now, which is more tedious.

The chick's water needs to be changed two times a day because they kick wood shavings into their dish repetitively. In their new box, their food and water is on a platform so the water stays much cleaner.

The chicks also need to be fed once a day. The food gets spilled very easily among the wood shavings; but the chicks like to peck at it, so it seems to be working out fine. The feeder we have doesn't have anything underneath, so I chose to put a plate underneath just so less food gets wasted when it comes time to clean the bin. The baby chicks eat a lot because just like any baby, they are growing very quickly in their first few weeks.

We love cuddling the baby chicks, they are going to be great pets, and we will soon get plenty of farm fresh eggs!

Since chicks are the gateway animal, I wonder what farm animal we will get next!