Raising Baby Chicks

[bytem]

Has anyone raised baby chicks and maybe has some advice to offer?I recently became the proud mother hen to 12 baby chicks.Got a great deal,buy 10 get 2 free.I had quite a few laying hens,but have never raised chicks.Right now they are in the garage,in a 30by40 box with shredded newspaper(KDH),chick feeder and waterer and a light bulb in one corner.All look very healthy and they are little eating and pooping machines.It's amazing how something that just hatched last tuesday can poop so much.One of the chicks has a little diarrhea and I worry about coccidiosis.There is no blood,just loose droppings.Any chicken people out there?

[Rick]

I raised some a few years ago. There's nothing to it. There's a lot of information online. I bought a book called, "Chickens in Your Backyard." It is a good book.

We had four hens, Golden Sex Links, and they would lay an egg every day. So we had plenty of eggs. We let them roam around all day, then at night, they would go into the coop. Here are a couple of pictures of the coop I made. The part in front was the nests. The lid opened and I could easily get the eggs.

[bytem]

Really nice coop!!!!!!!!!!Mine is similar,but with a screen door with chicken wire on the hen house so I can actually walk in.I like the pavers around the perimeter of the run.Good idea.My place is crawling with raccoons and I have seen foxes so I'm thinking about a strand of hot wire.

[xzochye]

Bytem, I am hatching chicks right now in my classroom and I have found a lot of help full information on www.backyardchickens.com. It has a nice forum board with lots of helpful folks.

[Rick]

That's one of the sites I used. Very good information.

The stones kept anything from getting in by digging. I would go out every night and close it so that they were protected. They were my babies...LOL They were really friendly and not at all aggressive.

I got rid of them when I got tired of all the snakes getting in there after we moved. One time, I opened the nest lid and a raccoon was sitting in there all fat and happy after eating the eggs. I am surprised he didn't kill the chickens. He didn't leave fat and happy.

I may raise some more. The eggs taste so much better then store bought. I just hate snakes!!!

[JoAnn Purser]

We have twelve new chicks (White Leggings and Rhode Island Reds) and six mallards (girls) for my bigger boy mallards. We have chicks and ducks sleeping together, it's a mess!

They should be generally easy to keep as long as you monitor the feed and water twice a day. We have a heat lamp on them 24 hours in our coop. They have about 10 x 6 feet of floor space and then the boxes to get up into when they are bigger and nesting.

Good luck.

They will bond with the primary person in their lives and follow them around when older. In my case that is my mother. She is the chicken lady and duck whisperer at our home.

[bytem]

Chickens and Ducks are great together.I had two big,white Ducks who stayed with my Hens until something came and killed them both.Whatever it was must have been bigger than a Raccoon because those Ducks were fully grown and they were no slouches.Raccoons finally got the Hens and I have not been able to find grown Hens this year and had to settle for Chicks.My Rooster,Cuddles,fell out of a Tree last month and hurt himself.While nursing him back to Health,I promised him some Company.You guys are right about the Back Yard Chicken Site,Thank you.