One Saturday in mid-April we picked up the Corgi puppy we had been waiting for, Willis. It just so happens that in that same week one of my co-workers had a large shipment of baby chicks coming in, five of which he did not need. They were Barred Plymouth Rocks, which is the variety we had wanted all along. We knew our time would be taken up by a new puppy, but we also couldn’t miss out on free chicks. That Thursday, my co-worker gave me the box, along with an extra thrown in, a Gold Laced Wyandotte. Hello six chickens!
That was almost the end of my entry until I remembered how nervous I was when we first got the chickens. I had so many questions and thought for sure they would die. It has actually been the easiest backyard project so far. During the first 2-3 weeks we kept them up stairs in our loft in a plastic storage tub with pine chips on the bottom and paper towels on top of that. We had little chick food and water dispensers that we cleaned and filled twice a day. We also changed the paper towels once a day. We hung a lamp from the ceiling and put in a heat bulb. Each week we raised the lamp a few inches.
Chick set up in loft
The first week of their life they should be kept at 95 degrees and then you decrease the heat by 5 degrees each subsequent week. Once they started ripping the paper towels to shreds we stopped putting those in. At some point they started jumping, so we put a screen from a window on top of the tub so they couldn’t escape. After 2-3 weeks we moved them, with their heat lamp, out to our shed. Once they had feathers and the temperature outside didn’t dip too low (around 65 degrees and 4-5 weeks of age) we moved them to their ark. If it was going to be a cold night we hooked up an extension cord to the heat lamp and put it out in their ark. At first we forced them to stay in the enclosed portion of their pen. After a few days, we moved the grate and let the roam around. Now it is just a matter of checking their water and food each day and moving the ark once a week. We are hoping to have eggs in August or September.
Really, easiest thing ever!
