Baby chickens need love and care. You may wonder if it’s worth raising chickens from day-old or just getting them already grown. I will say that brooding your chicks will be some work, but having chickens that know you far outweighs the cons of brooding chickens. Plus, their tiny peeps will make you fall in love.
Where to Get Baby Chicks
We have purchased ours online, had them shipped to our local USPS, and bought them in-store. Both are great, and I don’t really have a preference. I will say that buying them online is a lot of fun because you get to pick out exactly which breeds you want, and picking them up at the Post Office is a treat. Buying them in the store, you are subject to whatever the store bought for that round. Usually, your farm stores will have multiple weeks to receive 1-day-old chicks, allowing you time to prepare. However, where we live, the farm stores sell out of their baby chicks within hours of them becoming available to the public.
Setting Up Your Brooder
Once you have your sweet babies, you will want to set up a brooder for when you bring them home. Here are my tips for a simple brooder:
Your brooder can be large or small, depending on the number of chickens you have. Remember that they get large, and you do not want to put them outside until they are fully feathered. We have used a plastic tub for a little while, and then when they can be outside in the heat, we move them to our coop, which has an area designated for a brooder. If you keep them in a brooder until they are fully feathered, I suggest using a stock tank and providing them with ample space from the start.
For bedding, we use hemp bedding. In this post, I provide an in-depth overview of various bedding options. I used to have to special order this through Amazon, so I’ll link it here; however, fortunately, our local farm store now carries hemp. It’s definitely more expensive, but it’s less dusty, and I like how it breaks down over pine shavings. If you want something less costly but still gets the job done, pine shavings are a great option! We used them for years, and at times, I’m tempted to go back because chickens are dusty anyway!
Your baby chicks come with fuzzy feathers with no grown-up feathers to keep them warm. If they were in a clutch, their mama would keep her babies warm in all her feathers. For this reason, you need a heater. We use this heater, and we’ve found that it helps the feathering process go quicker. I like that it’s no-frills, and the chickens get to choose how far away from it they are at all times and how warm they stay. There is also no fire hazard. Please, please, please, do not use a heat lamp. We know people whose house burned down because of a heat lamp falling and catching the pine shavings on fire. We use radiant heat for this reason. We aim to eliminate any potential fire hazards.
For food, I have always used non-medicated. I don’t have a preference. I just haven’t seen the need to use medicated feed. You will want to feed them chick starter crumbled feed until they begin laying eggs. Always get crumble for when they are little – I honestly don’t think they give you a choice with pellets. I keep food in a smaller feeder when they are little, then when they move to the bigger brooder, I put a long dish in that protects it from being pooped on or stepped in. This is the Food Dish we use.
For water, please keep it clean and fresh. Even baby chickens scratch around in their brooder, filling the water dish with pine shavings. We use the water bases that attach to a canning jar. I find them easy to store and simple to wash. Here is the Water Dish we use. When they get bigger, I get a Bigger Water Dish.
Introducing Your Chicks to the Brooder
Your chicks will come home with you in a cardboard box, whether you pick them up at the Post Office or if you get them at the store. What I like to do when I get home is take each chicken out, one by one, and dip their beaks into the food and water so they know where to get their food and water source. I then show them the heater by gently placing them near the radiant heat, so they can learn where to find their heat source.
By the time I’m done introducing each one, they tend to gather around the heater, especially if I pick them up at a store. If I pick them up from the Post Office, they are quick to eat and drink because the gel that comes with them to hold them over during shipment is usually gone by the time you receive them at home. Remember, they just went through a lot to get home to you!
Remember to keep your brooder clean and ensure that fresh food and water are always available. The heater we use radiates heat so that when the chickens are hungry or thirsty, they can go and fill their tummies without getting cold. They will make their way back to the radiant heat and press themselves against the heater to warm up again. Just like if they were with their mama. They would go out, get food, water, scratch, and then make their way back to mom to get warm.
Cleaning Your Brooder
Brooders get icky quick. To make cleaning simple, I of course make sure the food and water are clean and fresh, but when the shavings or hemp start not looking fresh, I put a little layer over the poopy layer. Chickens naturally scratch around, so before you know it, your new bedding will be mixed with the old, and the smell will have dissipated. This is actually what we do in our chicken coop; it’s called the deep litter method, and it’s how we only completely clean out our coop once a year. It’s a game-changer in chicken keeping!
Once the chicks graduate to the coop, all our brooder supplies are cleaned and stored in a large tub in the chicken coop until we receive new baby chicks (or ducklings) again. You will see that many chickens have used our radiant heater and have been used multiple times. Your radiant heater will get messy. I spray off the bits of dried poop as best I can, but since we have hard water, the water dries and stains when it’s left. This radiant heater has been through many different sets of babies, even ducklings, and it has held up! The screen on the front shows wear, but the functionality remains intact.
Chicks Health
Baby chickens tend to get a thing called pasty butt. Pasty butt can kill a baby chicken, which is why it is so important to check their butts and wash off the poop that is stuck. If this goes on too long and is not cleaned, their vent can become blocked, leading to death. This is rare, but it can happen. Always be diligent with checking your chicks’ bums. Read more about how to care for pasty butt here.
Tips for Raising Friendly Chickens
- Get notoriously friendly breeds! Read my blog post about our favorite family-friendly breeds!
- Hold them – All the time. If you have little ones, let them enjoy holding the babies. Remember to wash your hands and your children’s hands after handling chickens.
- Start talking to them. I call mine “girls.” When I go outside, I say, “Hey girls!” and they come running. Or I say, “Here, chick, chick, chick, chickens!”
- Name them. This might seem funny, but all the chickens I regularly hold have names. This is more for us, but it really connects you to them, especially when letting your kids have a say in what their names are.
Check out more of my Chicken LoDown Posts:
Silkie Chickens – A Great Addition to Any Flock