by Harvey Ussery
Photos by author
A Place to Roost
Putting the Flock to Pasture
Feeding Options
Earning Their Keep
Dealing With Chicken Poop
Advice on using a broody hen
Hatching Eggs
Relocating the New Family
Raising Mail Order Chicks is Easy!
Begin With a Homemade Brooder
Water and Nutrition
In addition to feed, provide your brood free-choice “grit,” tiny bits of rock they swallow to grind their feed in their gizzards. You can purchase commercial granite grit (which is offered in various sizes appropriate to different ages and species of fowl), or you may locate chick-size grit, approximately the size of radish seeds, around your home.
Chicken Litter and a Homemade Brooder
Adequate sanitation in the brooder is essential to avoid disease and distress. But do not assume that absolute sterility is possible or desirable. You want to prevent the “caking” of manure in the brooder, produced by overcrowding or improper litter materials (those that are not absorbent and do not fluff up easily). While brooding successive batches, I recommend topping off the old litter with fresh material (instead of removing it completely and sterilizing the brooder). The litter becomes biologically active as decomposition continues (as in an active compost heap), resulting in microbial metabolites that actually toughen the immune systems of the growing chicks. An earth floor is ideal for this system. Raising purchased chicks is simple, but don’t forget that they rely on you for their every need.
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