Been offered chicks

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Aileen

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Hi, my neighbours nursery has been hatching chicks (autosexing) and I have been asked if I would like some, whilst I am desperate to say yes I really know NOTHING about it other than under heat until 6 weeks, crumbs then onto growers and not integrating till 16-20 weeks.
I am not going to take in haste to fall flat on my @rse and have to re-home so wanted to ask - how easy is it to rear chicks and is there a beginners/ basic brooder I can assemble in case I need to collect over the next few days?
I am talking like I am taking them, can I stress I have made NO firm decision and am not going to be offended in the least if you lot say steer clear due to lack of knowledge / experience etc I would rather you said that than kept shtoom as I am not convinced myself yet as I imagine it could be a fair amount of work initially.....
 
Been a lot of posts recently about rearing chicks from people with far less experience than you Aileen. First problem is out of the way if you get the autosexed hens. Electric hen for heat -Marigold and others will tell you about them in a cardboard sided box. Day and night at 7 days is what I do and I wouldn't integrate until fully grown and laying, so off rearers and onto layers. Bit of dust involved off their feathers so not for the dining room table. Then you need a separate run and coop which is totally rat proof as even a medium rat could kill or injure a 6 week chick.
 
I say go for it. You won't regret it. You can make your own brooder box out of a large roomy plastic storage bin, then you'll need the heat lamp which you keep adjusting accordingly to get the correct temperature for the chicks. The tricky bit will be where to keep them once they've outgrown the brooder box. I kept mine in a large brooder ring in the garage until it was time for them to go off heat and into the garden. Have fun!
 
i would say go for it but its up to you to make that decision all we can do is offer help , i was lucky to have some raised beds that fit onto of each other with metal grooves in each corner { aircraft cargo crates i think} and they made a wonderfull rearing area as i could add or remove each crate to any hieght i needed but do make sure you add a wire mesh roof as they will learn to jump around pretty quickly and get out you'll be surprised and also especailyl if you have dogs around its added protection from them and rats etc .
do you have a heat lamp in the house i used one of those and it was still going good and its over 20 yrs old but tying it up with tie wraps was a bit tricky .

p.s be warned you will find it hard to leave them alone i almost made a bad in the garage so i could watch them and rushing home each day was a nightmare :lol: :lol:
 
Oh yes, if you truly need more hens this is the way to go. I got Marigold and Nutmeg at 5 weeks, also autosexing/sexlinked breeds, off heat so no need for brooder or heat lamp or electric hen, and they were just lovely and soon got so tame and it was so interesting to watch them grow and develop. I was lucky enough to have a spare eglu and run for them to grow up in, on grass and moveable, and they taught me so much about chickens that I wouldn't have known about if iId never tried getting chicks. It wasn't that much different from adult chickens really, except their special food and making sure they didn't get wet out in the rain ( I put a plastic cover over the top of their wirte run, held on by long elastic ropes, so they got plenty of light but also had shelter when needed.) I was extra careful to keep them very clean and move the run on to fresh grass frequently, and they got to know the big girls through the mesh when they were out and about. When they were 18 weeks I moved them so they had part of the enclosed henrun divided off, and had their coop under their share of the sheltered end. All the chickens then had had a 'worming week' confined together in the run, divided run, and then it was very easy really to integrate them with the older pair of hybrids and there has been no trouble since. And those first eggs were SO SPECIAL!
Next time I need more girls i shall definitely do it that way again. If you want purebreds they might as well be spending the Spring and Summer under your care rather than being out in abigger flock not being handled or used to people so much. And of course chicks cost much less than POLs.
 
Lots of great advice already.I do not know how many you like to have ;for the few I just use cardboard box with table lamp(60W red lithbulb for 3 weeks and 40W for the rest).In the bigging keep them on something antislip when they learn to propely use their legs,I was using sand and wood shawings .My GlPF were so greedy that had eatan to much of the sand in their first week and some of them had blocked up them self(they all survived that) so i had swoped for the wood shawing(they also try to eat this sometimes)First week is to better to keep them on some sort of cloth and change when nessesery.Every week I mooving them to a bigger box,to give them more room.Keep them feed and watter all the times.In my house they have constant light 24H a day.This year chick are 6 weeks old and I do not use a lamp for them,they getting use to day/night rutine.This was working for me well.Some breeders advise on putting anticocoid in to the water for small chick or to use madicated food.I had never done that just think if you have few chicks there is no crowd and they can grow as they pleased,they develop they own immunity in time.
 
You haven't said how old they would be, Aileen, if you collected them soon, and in my reply I just somehow assumed they'd be off heat ie about 5+ weeks. But if less than this, and if you're not getting very many, no worries if you can set up an enclosed area with some heat- I've got my quail chicks under a Brinsea Ecoglow which is very economical and grows with them ie you can move the warm part up higher as they get bigger and need less heat also. I found the best price was from Countryfayre at http://www.countryfayre-countrystore.co.uk/ much cheaper than the Brinsea website itself, and total cost will be less than a ceramic heat lamp + holder, for a more useful and economical piece of equipment.
 
It's like verything else, when it goes well it's easy & when it doesn't it can be very stressful. You obviously need to work out where to put them, allowing enough space for them to grow. Not enough space can lead to illness, especially cocci. There are several ways of providing heat and light and you need to work out which will suit your setup. If you go for a Brinsea brooder, go for a new one as some of the older models did not give off enough heat. Chicks tend to be very wasteful with food and are best fed with a special chick feeder and drinker. It is costly to rear them but there is no doubt it's a great experience and there's great satisfaction in rearing them up to laying. If the nursery is on hand, presumably you would be able to get some back up and advice from them. As always too much conflicting advice is not good. The fact that you can be sure you are raising just pullets is a bonus.
 
'It's like verything else, when it goes well it's easy & when it doesn't it can be very stressful.' i could not agree more with tha not only with chicks but adults birds as well chuck .
shame you wasnt down the road or esle i would let you borrow my maran shes miss broody central i'm dreadig the next few months with her as i dont really want to be doing chicks this year although i'm tempted to do a few bantam chicks :-)05 :-)05
 
Having hatched and reared chicks I can say has been a wonderful experience.
I think it can be as simple, or as difficult as you make it, but the watching them grow and develop is amazing.
I have got some Pekins at the moment, and some tiny hybrid bantams from my little Sablepoot mum, and they are a delight to watch they are two weeks old today. On Tuesday my granddaughters were playing with them and knocked a 4" long piece of plastic string into the brooder, this was set upon by all of them and a mini tug of war ensued, my human girls were all for making teams! They are the most amazing little bunch, very strong and lively. They do need a lot of attention whilst in the brooder box, spilled water, ruined bedding etc., but keep on top of it and they are a constant delight.
I say go for them, Aileen.
 
Yes as Chuck and Karminski say, of it goes wrong it's stressful, if it goes right its wonderful, but that's life, isn't it? If you never tried new things life would be very dull. Be sure all your bases are covered, ie you know already they'll be pullets, get suitable equipment and food for their immediate needs, keep them very clean, think ahead to what you're going to do with them when theyre 'teenagers', and enjoy them.
And if there are problems, as there may be along the way, sort them out and learn from them. There are lots of people on here with vast experience of raising chicks who will help you, as you know.
BTW, what breed are they? And have you had a chance to see the hatchery and ask questions?
 
With a ll the riches of the English language we have to use 'nursery' in two different ways. I took nursery to mean flowers and plants but now realise you probably meant childrens nursery ! :)
 
Chuck said:
With a ll the riches of the English language we have to use 'nursery' in two different ways. I took nursery to mean flowers and plants but now realise you probably meant childrens nursery ! :)
Click to expand...

Good point, Chuck, I just took it to be a breeder's hatchery of some kind!
So what background have you actually got on these chicks, Aileen? If it's a hatching project in a children's nursery, how competent do you think the setup is for hatching and starting to rear chicks? And what are they going to do with the boys? (Can they even tell the difference reliably?)
 
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