Baby Chicks and Brooders

Ok, you want to start raising babies, great! The best advice I can give you is Research , Research,  Research.  Then when you think you have finished researching,  research some more. There is no right way to do it, but there are a hell of a lot of wrong ways to do it.  That is why raising chickens can be a little overwhelming.  I thought I had all the information I needed when I got the babies, boy, was I wrong. I am only a week and a half in and I had to upgrade my brooder size. This was due to my first five Olive Eggers doubling their size in a week, plus adding three new Lavender Orpington babies. I notice one of the three was not being included and shoved around. She was literally getting walked on. I realized at that moment, it could be due to several things, one being the size of the brooder.  

What is a brooder? Let's get to hen basics real quick. In the chicken world we have what is called a broody hen. This is basically your momma hen who sits on the egg. She may be a bit grumpy because she limits the time she gets off of her eggs to eat and use the restroom.  Her entire job for 21 to 30 days is to sit on her eggs and help them hatch by being that source of warmth and humidity.  Then, once they hatch she continues for the next few weeks to keep the babies warm and fed.  Hence, a brooder box.

The first few days is critical to chick life. You need to make sure the brooder is the proper temperature (based on hen and where you live) and thoroughly cleaned. For my chicks, the temperature started at 98° F. This normally is supposed to drop 5° a week until the temperature matches outside. However, you really should be listening/watching your chicks during this sensitive time. Their behavior is what should dictate how fast or slow you change the heat lamp. If they are panting and holding those wings out, by God you make sure to cool it off quicker. Chickens don't sweat and can die of heat stroke easily.  In a small brooder box, they have no way to get away from the heat to cool down. That's only one issue with a smaller box. The other issue I was running into was boredom and not enough space. Here was the size of my old brooder. (Please excuse the hot mess of a room, I am not used to housing baby chickens in my bedroom.)  

Two chewy boxes mashed together for a total of eight baby chickens. It was beginning to be a bit much.  My poor baby, who happens to be the smallest was just getting picked on and I felt she was giving up. First thing I did was put electrolytes in the water to help perk her up. Next, I went to the store and purchased large boxes and a ton of supplies.  All these supplies cost me less than 20 bucks as I am just using shipping supplies.  You do NOT need to buy fancy brooders online as this is temporary housing. But, that is ultimately up to you. I put four of these large boxes together and then used any extra cardboard to place on the bottom. I wanted to add as much padding as possible to prevent moisture and leakage.  I then added a layer of parchment paper, followed by puppy pee pads, then pine shavings. Due to me being paranoid,  I put another layer of puppy pads over the shavings so I could monitor my baby chicks poop. I then added a corner with some shavings and two new areas where the food and water was elevated to prevent them from being defected in. This is what the new brooded looks like.

Already a hot mess after 2 minutes. The good news is my baby Artemis who I was worried about, has appeared to do better with this set up. I will continue to monitor and hope for the best.

Now, why am I monitoring the poop? I found myself freaking out about the poop because of chicken diseases.  Apparently,  the number one killer or baby chickens is Coccidiosis. This is the parasite I spoke briefly about in a previous post. You can see this in poop, so naturally I want to make sure I don't miss it. Since I am home right now, as most are, I am using this opportunity to make sure all is well and being extremely over the top helicopter chicken mom. If you are curious what normal chicken poop looks like for your flock, I did find this site to be helpful. You can of course avoid this stress by getting medicated feed and help your babies build their immune system. I messed up and spent a lot of money on feed that I thought was medicated,  but it was just organic.  So, here we are with me stressing out with every little abnormality.  It is all a learning moment and in the future, I know what to do. And what not to do.

I by no means know it all, I can only provide insight from my personal experience and from what I have read in the books. I also get a lot of tribal knowledge on different forums and social media.  With social media, I do try to back that information up with what I have read in books. For example, I will not give my babies Ivermectin without consulting a Veterinarian first. This is an off label drug that normally isn't given to chickens and I would hate it if I hurt them because I listened to the internet because it worked for a handful of people.

I do hope that with my experiences,  I can help you out in some way. I had chickens when I was younger, and being able to raise them as an adult has been rewarding. I do recommend not having the brooder in your room though...the only reason I am blogging at 1am is because I cannot sleep. These cuties decided to get the zoomies around midnight and woke me up, and just went back to sleep.  House them in a different room, and if you are a helicopter chicken mom like me, get a baby cam.