Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (81 page)

Floor hover provides heat; a brooder guard eliminates drafts.

Chicks are attracted more to light than to heat, which is why commercial brooders have a small light, appropriately called an attraction light, near the heat source. One 25-watt bulb will adequately light about 10 square feet (1 sq m). To help chicks find feed and water, light the brooder continuously for the first 48 hours. If the brooder gets natural daylight, after the first 2 days you can turn the light off during the day. Windows on the south side furnish the best sunlight.

Even if the light is also your source of heat, turn it off for half an hour during each 24-hour period — but obviously not during the coolest hours — so the chicks learn not to panic later when the lights go out at night or in the event of a power failure. Putting the light on a timer will save you the trouble of remembering to turn it off and on each day.

Light affects the growth rate of chicks, so never keep them in the dark. Even if you have to dim the lights to control cannibalism, the light should still be bright enough for you to see what’s going on in the brooder. A rule of thumb is that dimmed lighting should be at least bright enough to barely read a newspaper.

Raising newborn chicks on wire-mesh flooring has both advantages and disadvantages. The biggest advantage is ease of cleaning, since droppings and other debris fall through the brooder floor and are caught on a droppings tray or a layer of newspaper.

A disadvantage is the lack of gradual exposure that allows floor-reared chicks to develop immunity to coccidiosis, a major chickhood disease. Unless the birds spend the rest of their lives in wire cages, those brooded on wire are likely to suffer an outbreak of coccidiosis when moved to open housing. Brooding chicks on litter from the start gives them the gradual exposure to coccidia they need to develop immunity.

Another disadvantage of brooding on wire is that the chicks are more likely to become cannibalistic than chicks raised on litter. No one is exactly sure why, but the theory is that, since pecking is normal behavior, chicks that have nothing else to peck at will peck each other.

Bedding also helps keep chicks dry, insulates the floor for added warmth, and absorbs droppings. Ideal kinds of litter are peat moss, wood shavings (pine, not hardwood), crushed corncobs, crushed cane, finely shredded paper, vermiculite, and coarse sand. Chopped straw retains more moisture than most other types of bedding, and manure tends to cake on the surface, but it is usable if that’s all you have or can obtain cheaply. Avoid whole straw, since chicks have trouble walking on it and it quickly mats down.

When brooding chicks on litter, stir up the litter every day to keep it from packing down, and add fresh bedding as often as necessary to keep it fluffy and absorbent. Remove and replace moist bedding around waterers, since damp litter turns moldy and can cause
aspergillosis
, known as brooder pneumonia. This brooder disease and others are easily prevented by proper litter management.

If you area-brood chicks on dirt, first cover the dirt with well-anchored ½-inch (12.5 mm)-mesh aviary netting or hardware cloth to keep out burrowing predators. Then spread a layer of litter at least 3 inches (7.5 cm) deep on top.

Whether you brood on wire or litter, for the first 2 days, cover the floor with paper. In my smaller brooders I first put down a few layers of newspaper; the big brooder I line with opened-out feed sacks. Freshly hatched chicks can’t be brooded directly on newspaper or other smooth paper, because little guys damage their legs slipping around on it. So on top of the paper liner I put a layer of paper toweling, adding a fresh layer at least daily or as often as necessary to keep it clean.

Covering a wire-bottom brooder with paper prevents chicks from getting their little hocks jammed through the wire, and also eliminates drafts. Covering litter bedding with paper encourages the chicks to peck at feed instead of filling up on litter. Once the chicks are eating and walking well, all the paper may be removed easily by rolling up the newspaper or feed sacks.

The rate at which chicks grow varies from breed to breed. Bantams and most of the heritage breeds grow more slowly than others. Hybrid broilers are bred for
excessively rapid growth. Separating the pullets from the cockerels as soon as you can identify them helps both parties grow more steadily.

For the first few days, all chicks spend a lot of time sleeping and therefore don’t need much room to roam. But as they grow and become more active, they need increasingly more space for sanitary reasons and to prevent the boredom that leads to picking at each other. On the other hand, more isn’t necessarily better — chicks given too much space during cold weather have trouble staying warm.

If you start chicks in a box or other closely confined brooder, giving them more space as they grow means either dividing them up or periodically moving the entire batch to larger quarters. If you start chicks in an area brooder, giving them more room is simply a matter of expanding the draft barrier until it is no longer needed.

The rule of thumb is to begin with about 6 square inches (40 sq cm) of space per chick. Bantams and light breeds can get by with a little less; broilers and the really big breeds need a little more. Base the size of the brooding and growing space you provide more on common sense than on a meticulous measuring of the floor space. Common sense tells you chicks are overdue for expanded living quarters if:

They have little room to move and exercise or to spread out for sleep.

They dirty the brooder floor faster than you can keep it reasonably clean — droppings pack on the floor, manure balls stick to feet, you can smell ammonia.

They run out of feed or water between feedings, indicating the need for a larger area to accommodate more or larger feeders and waterers.

A move to unfamiliar housing is a frightening experience for chicks, and chicks that are frightened tend to pile together and smother one another. For the first few nights after moving chicks, provide dim lighting and check often to make sure they are okay. Moving their old feeders and waterers to the new location also helps by bringing along something familiar.

If you move chicks or growing birds to housing that has held chickens in the past, the facility must be thoroughly cleaned, swept free of dust and cobwebs, and washed down. First clean it with warm water and detergent, then with warm water and chlorine bleach(¼ cup bleach per gallon of hot water; 15 mL/L) or other disinfectant approved for use with poultry. Leave doors and windows open until the housing is completely dry before bringing in the new birds.

When light breeds reach about 4 weeks of age and heavy breeds about 6 weeks, they’re ready to roost on low perches. Don’t provide roosts for broilers
or they’ll develop breast blisters and crooked keels. For others nighttime roosting is a natural and healthy habit, and hopping on and off perches during the day is good entertainment, as well as good exercise. Allow 4 inches (10 cm) of roosting space per chick. Provide low and high perches, or start the perches close to the floor and move them up as the majority of birds learn to use them.

Before about 1950, most chicks were reared on range, which has once again become popular. A portable range shelter on skids is especially attractive for raising a batch of meat birds, since they don’t require permanent year-round housing. If the weather is warm enough — and presumably weather that’s warm enough for pasture growth is warm enough for chicks — broilers may be put out when they are as young as 2 weeks of age. If the weather is still cool, wait until the chicks are fully feathered before putting them on pasture.

Raising pullets on pasture, away from older birds, gives them time to develop immunities through gradual exposure to the diseases in their environment. Even in a colder climate where the pullets must later be moved to winter housing, range rearing during spring and summer offers sunshine, fresh air, and green feed that combine to keep the birds healthy.

When moving chicks to a range shelter, for the first few days confine them to the shelter or to a small, enclosed yard while they can get oriented before you give them freedom to roam. If it rains, especially a long, hard rain at night, go out
and check your birds to make sure they aren’t huddled outside or squatting in a puddle inside the shelter.

Tack ½” (125 mm) aviary netting under roosts and across ends to keep chicks from picking in droppings.

Even if you don’t have pasture or range, when the chicks are at least 2 weeks old and the weather is warm and sunny, you can put them in a pen or wire-bottom cage on the lawn for a few hours each day, provided the lawn has not been sprayed with toxins. They’ll need shade and water, a ½-inch (12.5 mm)-mesh wire guard around the perimeter so they can’t wander away, and wire mesh over the top to keep out hawks and cats. For good sanitation and to provide fresh forage, put the pen in a new spot each day. If you put a pen of growing chicks in your garden, spade under the soil after each move.

Newly hatched chicks need chick-size feeders and waterers to start with. As they mature, they’ll need different feeders and waterers that provide better access for larger birds and that hold the larger amounts of feed and water consumed by growing birds.