Spring is here!! It's baby chick season! Here's how to add to your flock, without using a brooder! ♥

in #dailychicken5 years ago


Spring is here, ya'll! One of the best things about spring is BABY PEEPS!!


This year, I wanted to add to our flock. Our birds are great, but there are a couple of breeds I would like to have.



Eventually you need to add some new blood to the flock. A little inbreeding is okay with chickens, you won't really have issues, but at some point, you need to add in some new birds. Baby chicks are a great option, BUT setting up a brooder can be a pain. They are messy, dusty, rather noisy, and you have to constantly check their temps, and clean out their feed and water dishes, because they are messy little pigs!
 

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This year I wanted some Speckled Sussex, (very pretty and very good egg layers), and a few Buckeyes, (I'm from Ohio and these birds originated there, so I have always wanted some.)


I was not about to set up a brooder though! Ain't nobody got time for that! I DID have a broody hen though! When the hen hatched her eggs, we ran to our local feed store and picked up some babies! After tucking them under the hen, amongst her other babies, she took them in, just as if they were her own.
 

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I highly recommend this as a way to add some new birds to your flock. There's only one real issue that I've ever run into.


The chicks from the feedstore have always been in a brooder. They have never been near a mother hen. At first, they may be a little clueless and wander off from their new mother. For the first day or so, you will want to check on them periodically and make sure they don't get lost. They get the hang of it though, and pretty soon they are behaving just like the hen's natural babies. ♥

If you'd like to see the peeps in action, feel free to check out this video!:



Yep, it's YouTube. I actually AM currently trying to upload a video to DTube and hopefully I can figure that out too! So many forms of social media! It's crazy...

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Thanks for stopping by!! How many of you out there have baby chickies running around? Aren't they just the best? ♥



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We have 65 new baby chicks coming next week. We may hatch our own eggs in a month or two as well. So not ready for all those chicks in our garage! But it’s still too cold to have them outside with the chickens. I do wonder how they will get along. Will the roosters be an issue? We currently have 3.

Well, it CAN be tricky when introducing young ones to the flock. Thats another reason I like having the hen do it, because they are in the flock from the beginning.
I think free ranging also helps, or at least, have LOTS of space for them to get away if someone is picking on them. Introducing a butt-load of chicks all at once will also help, since no one should be getting picked on too much, there are just so many. Honestly, I have found that young hens are really the worst about picking on newcomers, roosters, (in my experience), are the protectors of the flock, and dont tend to pick on young ones.

Young hens? Well I wasn’t expecting that! We will have to see how it goes, but I’m thinking it shouldn’t be too bad..I hope!

Hopefully not!! Good luck!

We've got 90 chicks due on May 3rd, but they will be in a brooder. I've no place for a hen and chicks, and my coop is too small for them to be in there.

Woo 90!
I understand that. In a small coop, it would be hard, if not impossible. We free range so the hen can take her chicks where ever it is safe. They DO get locked in the coop at night with everyone else, and it's not an issue though.

We have fox that moved here last year. Have lost 3 hens from our Fort Knox in 3 days, but not yesterday. I think what she's doing, as she can't get in, is scaring them so they fly out. I found 1 out at supper time and put her back in, and we still had 15 when I locked up for the night. Gonna have to make the sides higher, I guess.... Or put up a separate perimeter fence so she can't scare them into flying...

Wing trimming can also help if they are hopping the fence! I get some crazy hens that decide they should go over any and every fence they find, so I just catch them atnight and trim those flight feathers. :)

I remember my parents doing that when I was growing up

And look at that hen... reminds me of that nursery rhyme... A big fat hen ;D

Bah ha ha! She IS a big fat hen for sure!

My grandmother had chickens when I was young. She never had any chics - too bad cause they are super cute :)

They are just the cutest, arent they?!

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Aww, so cute - me and my son just watched a hatching chick today, so amazing - I will be having my own flock very soon, hopefully this year, can't wait <3

Oh wow! Well good luck! I hope you DO get your new flock soon! Chickens are super fun creatures and are pretty sturdy, so they survive newbie mistakes very well. ;)

I did have chickens once when I lived in Italy, so I already did most of my newbie mistakes ;) A good portion of them got taken by the fox when we forgot to close them in, but fortunately there are no foxes on the island where we moved now! So that saves a lot of trouble!

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