I caught the fever. I now have chickens (for almost a year now). Though I am a bit behind in writing about this, believe me- it was an incredibly busy year last year... between my new endeavor and battling out a summer long drought in the garden. So where to begin...
I should explain that, as a kid, we had chickens. They were great. I wasn't into the care taking part of the chickens back then, because it wasn't something my parents expected of me. I do remember exploring their coop and some of the basics, like storing their feed in metal trash cans so rodents don't eat it. I remember they needed to eat what's called 'grit', which was tiny stones, along with normal food. I'll probably continue to recall all sorts of memories along the way. More than anything, I remember they were just fun to have around. To me they were pets. I got yelled at a couple times for chasing the chickens (I think I was told that you can stress them out and/or give them a heart attack by doing that... or maybe that was my dad being over dramatic). I remember collecting feathers that they would molt. So many positive memories.
A question I keep hearing from people, once they learn that I started keeping chickens is, 'Are they for eggs or for meat?'.
Is it just as common to keep chickens for their meat as it is for eggs? This questions always throws me off a little bit.
When I was a kid, even after our hens stopped laying, they lived out their lives until they died of old age. I distinctly remember one old hen who wasn't being very active one summer day. She was just laying in the middle of the backyard. Concerned, I built her a mini blanket fort of some sort using some of my dad's wooden saw horses and other materials to give her shade. She ended up passing away that day and I was very sad.
I couldn't imagine raising chickens for meat. I am a omnivore, I'd be lying if I said chicken nuggets weren't one of my favorite foods ever. I'm not shaming anyone who raises chickens for meat, but I just don't think I could ever do it. Maybe if it were a more common place thing, as it probably was a hundred years ago, I'd be less standoffish about it. My intentions are that my chickens are for laying eggs and that I am providing them with a forever home.
I missed chickens.
Then one spring day this year, I made the plunge. After years of hemming and hawing over it, I just did it. We eat a LOT of eggs. We have the land. I have the will. It also helped that I had been asking lots of questions to a few coworkers who also had chickens.
One day, May 19th 2016 to be exact, I drove over to the local Agway (a sort of farm and garden type store) on my lunch break to check out the chicks that they had there... just to look at them. I walked in to the sounds of cheeping of chicks. Which is one of the sweetest little sounds. I walked over and peering into a plastic rope handle tub that was sitting on the floor by the store desk. Inside was a temporary set up for some of these little fluffballs. Apparently, people order chicks ahead of time and then they arrive at the store. As shocking as shipping live chicks in the mail seems, apparently a newly hatched chick can sustain itself from the residual effects of their egg life. So I was basically looking at newly hatched chicks that were days old.
I asked a lot of questions to one of the ladies working there. She was very knowledgeable, helpful and patient with me. I basically knew nothing.
She explained that the chicks in the plastic tub, were called Golden Laced Wyandottes. I would later read that this is actually a very old breed in America. From what I was putting together, once a customers chicks arrive, they have only so many days to pick them up or they chicks are refunded and go back up for sale. They need homes NOW. Apparently, this was the story for the chicks in the tub. The lady said that she could hold some for me, but when I voiced hesitancy that I should talk about it with my boyfriend first, she said she couldn't make any promises and that it was a first come first serve situation.
The pressure was on. All I knew was that I NEEDED those chicks in my life!
I attempted to get a hold of my boyfriend to no avail, as he was working also. I needed to make a decision. So on one of my breaks I called up the store and asked if they could hold six of the Golden Laced Wyandottes.
New York State has a law that you can't buy less than six chickens. I thought about this for a long time and it makes sense. Or as one of my friends put it, 'You mean a state (or lobbyist) might actually care about the well being of an animal?'. I kept hearing that about one in five chicks is expected to die (not sure for any particular reason, just some infant mortality rate). That would give you five at a minimum. Chickens are social animals, something I'm learning more and more about first hand. It would be essentially cruel to only get one or two chickens. They need each other! So maybe five is some minimum flock amount to help maintain a healthy social order for them. This is my guess at least.
By the time I finally saw my boyfriend at the end of my shift- my mind was made up. To his surprise I said, "I'm getting chickens and I have to go pick them up now."
When I say I made the plunge, I really did- I had literally nothing. The lady let me pick out the six chicks from the tub. She hooked me up with the essentials: a feeder, a waterer, chick starter feed, a clip lamp with a ceramic base, the heat lamp bulb (red colored), and pine shavings bedding. All of these initial supplies, by the way, are really cheap- I think the whole list, including the chicks, was under $50.
I started the chicks off in a plastic tub. They were very small after all. However, my cats were intensely interested in watching them- we soon became very concerned about the cats knocking over the heat lamp and burning down the house. If you ever get a chance to get your hand near one of these lamps, it's easy to see how that could happen- they are hot!
One quick trip to Lowe's and a few hours later, I threw together an entire indoor enclosure.
There are a lot of things to learn about in the beginning.
There are some general rules about how high to keep the heat lamp... raising it up slightly every week. The first week they need an air temperature of 95 degrees, the next week you raise the lamp until the air temperature is decreased to 90... and so on and so on, until they are ready to be moved outdoors (basically when they have real feathers).
You have to monitor their behavior. They are so tiny and they need help to stay warm, but they also don't want to be too warm. You could tell if they were too hot if they tended to sleep away from the lamp and if they were directly under the lamp, they were too cold. They shouldn't be in a place that is going to be drafty either. I think the general idea was that you were also slowly toughening them up over time as they got older. It's a relate-able concept similar to the process of hardening off for young seedlings.
The heat lamp needs to be pretty securely hooked up to hang over the area where the chicks are. I used a chain that I fastened to a ceiling hook. The chain wasn't flammable and it made it easy to raise it incrementally.
And the heat lamp needs to be red. It is on all the time. You are never turning it off. This is a heat source. The red color isn't as bright and is easier on their eyes to help them sleep. Probably just as important, the red color also prevents them from pecking each other. Chickens are sort of freaks when it comes to the color red and if a chick was pecked and started bleeding... well, they would just keep pecking at the red color... you can sort of see where that is going. The red bulb will make everything red for them, so they sort of can't tell any one thing in particular is red I guess.
One important thing I could see as being easily not known or overlooked is having the right kind of bedding material. DO NOT USE CEDAR SHAVINGS- the volatile oils in cedar are harmful to the chicks respiratory system. Use pine shavings instead.
Here I built them a miniature roost out of some twigs from a tree I was pruning. One of my friends, who has chickens, suggested this to me. Obviously make it small, and maybe make it larger and larger for them over time. It gets them working on their perching skills and it gave them something to play around on in the monotony of their little indoor home. They would compete with each other for perching at the top, which was pretty fun to watch I have to say. I wonder if this was the beginnings of the pecking order.
One other thing to mention for new chick moms or dads to keep in mind... interaction. The chicks will resist it, but you will both benefit from regular gentle interaction, especially holding them. I tried to spend a minimum of half an hour every day, sitting directly on the ground in their little indoor enclosure. It was to get them used to my presence and holding them as much as I could manage... it made a difference. One of the chicks that I managed to hold more than the others, definitely was drawn to me more as she got older. Eventually they became quite comfortable with me around and began perching on my legs. As they grew older, they would perch on my arms and as adults... some of them would jump up and perch on my shoulders. When I raise chicks again at some point in the future, one thing I will definitely emphasis more is handling them on a very regular basis. The bond you form with them early on, sticks with them. It's amazing actually. It's hard to explain the feeling when you approach your flock of chickens in the yard and they all start running toward you- like, "Look, mom's here!".
A bit of a disclaimer: I'm still super new at this and I am certainly not giving a comprehensive account of what's involved with raising chicks. My flock isn't even a year old yet and I'm still learning a lot as a go along. I would definitely suggest, if you are catching the fever yourself, to do as much research as possible. There are so many resources available. If you are lucky to know others who keep chickens, they are likely amazing resources in and of themselves. I am so grateful for the willingness of my friends to not just patiently answer any of my questions, but enthusiastically share their own experiences and love of chickens. One website I was recommended to use was My Pet Chicken. There is a lot of helpful information there, including a free chicken care guide. I highly recommend it.
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| Simon mesmerized by the chickies |
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