Raising Chickens

By Stella Li

Table of Contents

Why raise chickens? How do I obtain chicks or eggs? How do I incubate eggs? What do I need to do during they are hatching? What is candling? What is the appropriate environment for my

chicks? How do I maintain my brooder? What do baby chicks eat?

A young chick

Chickens are useful

Why Raise Chickens?Chickens are useful because they:‐ Eat vegetable scraps (so no more wasted

food!).⁻ Make good fertilizer for gardens and

compost.⁻ Can scratch in your garden and make it easier

to dig.⁻ eat harmful insects.AND, you can eat their eggs for breakfast!

How do I obtain chicks or eggs?You can obtain chicks from a hatchery.

Right after a chick hatches, it stores the rest of the yolk it fed on during incubation. This way, the chick can go without food or water for several days. During those days, it is a good time for the hatchery to ship the chicks to your front door. Remember that traveling in mail is stressful for chicks. When the chicks arrive, immediately give them heat, water and food.

Another option is to order eggs instead. Eggs might hatch, but most won’t so you should order about 20 eggs for a few successful hatches. If you want to hatch eggs without a mother chicken to incubate them, you should also buy an incubator. An incubator is a device where chick eggs are provided with a warmth equal to the incubation a egg would receive from its mother.

Eggs

How do I hatch eggs?

You must use an incubator to hatch eggs if you don’t have a mother chick to incubate them. Incubate means to provide essential warmth to help an egg hatch. Usually this is done by a mother, but incubators can heat the eggs as if they were being incubated by their mother.

Incubation usually takes 20-23 days of high about 100 ˚F. You also must turn the eggs every

day (except for 2 or 3 days before expected hatching). Make sure that there is enough moisture(you can do this by setting a cup or bowl of water in the incubator.) so that the eggs don’t dry out. You must change this water twice a week. Note: the amount of moisture in the incubator depends on the moisture in the room. If the room moisture is high, you may not have to add extra humidity at all.

An incubator with eggs inside

What is candling?

Candling is the process of finding if an is fertile egg or an infertile egg. A fertile egg is an egg that is able to hatch into a chick. If an egg is infertile, it will not hatch and it is important to get rid of it before it rots, causing a nasty smell in the incubator.

To find if an egg is fertile or not, we candle the egg. To candle an egg, you need a light source of some kind in a dark room. Hold the egg up to the light source and look at the

egg so you can see a shadow of what is inside. If the egg is fertile, you will see the developing embryo as a black blob in the middle of the egg. If the egg is infertile, you won’t see anything as the egg would look as if it were empty.

The process of candling can be done anytime, but is best done after the 8th day, when the embryo is easier to identify. You should also candle the eggs 3 days before they are expected to hatch.

An egg being candled

What do I need to do while they are hatching?

When the first egg starts to crack, make sure there is max humidity by adding more water to the bowl or cup. That way the chicks don’t dry out when they hatch. After the first egg starts to hatch, most of the other eggs will hatch within 12-48 hours. DO NOT open the lid of the incubator or interfere with the eggs hatching unless it is extremely necessary. After some of the eggs have hatched, Open incubator and move the hatched chicks to a brooder.

A hatching chick.You shouldn’t disturb the hatching eggs.

What is an appropriate environment for my chicks?

Usually, chicks would be raised in a brooder. A brooder is a comfortable, wind-proof environment for raising chicks. You can buy a brooder, but it is much easier way to make your own.

A brooder could be a cardboard box with the necessary parts of any brooder.Any brooder must have:

• a heat source. A 100-250 watt lamp will do for about 12 chicks.

• a soft, loose, absorbing material such as straw, wood shavings, shredded cardboard or shredded paper as the flooring.

• an area for the chicks to exercise in.Make sure where ever the brooder is (your garage, living room, basement, barn, etc.)that it is protected from pets, pests, or wild animals that could hurt your chicks.

A homemade brooderYou don’t need to buy a fancy commercial brooder; you can make one of your own, and it doesn’t need to be as complicated as this one.

How do I maintain my brooder?Maintaining a brooder isn’t very easy. First,

you must make sure your chicks are at the right temperature. If you are using a lamp, you can control the temperature by moving the lamp up and down. Watch your chicks often. If they are moving around a lot, the temperature is just fine. If they are huddling together, its too cold. If they are staying as far away from the lamp as possible, its too hot.

Brooders are supposed to allow fresh air to circulate, but not allow direct wind which would cool the chicks.

Young chicks eatingIf you buy commercial chicken feed, be sure to buy the starter formulation.

What do baby chicks eat?If you want to go and buy commercial

chick feed, be sure to buy the starter formulation (high protein, medicated feed). As your chicks age, they will need different formulations that have more minerals and less and less protein.

An easier way is to use common food found around your house. For most chicks, you can feed them soaked rice. Put the rice on a spoon and feed it to your chicks.

Once your chicks have grown all their feathers, the easiest way to feed them is probably letting them find their own food. Let them into your backyard or pasture in an enclosed or watched area and let them find bugs and vegetation that they know they can eat. Make sure they don’t accidentally swallow small, foamy items that might suffocate your chicks.

Your chicks need water to survive. If you give them a waterer, make sure the waterer has a small, restricted “lip” so that the chicks don’t splash in the water and freeze.

Chicks playing and eating outsideOnce the chicks have grown all their feathers, you can put them outside to find food on their own.

Credits for Images Used:Image #1: WasabiNoise, “Very cute chicken,” August 14, 2006 via Flickr, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic:http://www.flickr.com/photos/djkubik/215310099/

Image #2: WindRanch, “Robot Chicken,” April 3, 2010 via Flickr, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic:http://www.flickr.com/photos/jetling/4486946140/

Image #3: woodleywonderworks, “eggs of many colors,” June 23, 2008 via Flickr, Attribution 2.0 Generic:http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwwor

Image #4: Cowgirl Jules, “Incubating,” March 23, 2010 via Flickr, Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic:http://www.flickr.com/photos/cowgirljules/4458652686/

Image #5: Cowgirl Jules, “Candling eggs,” April 10, 2010 via Flickr, Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generichttp://www.flickr.com/photos/cowgirljules/4509838294/

Image #6: Ben Amstutz, “Chicken in an egg,” April 30, 2010 via Flickr, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generichttp://www.flickr.com/photos/infinitewilderness/4567317258/

Image #7: rwentechaney, “Our Homemade Brooder,” July 3, 2009 via Flickr, Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic:http://www.flickr.com/photos/rwentechaney/3684313547/in/set-72157620908328902

Image #8: .imelda, “Baby Chickens,” March 20, 2010 via Flickr, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic:http://www.flickr.com/photos/imelda/4448017389/

Image #9: itstonyhaha, ”The FAM BAM,” July 1, 2009 via Flickr, Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonysong/3677494675/\ks/2607036664/