The Ultimate 8 Week Guide to Raising Chicks 🐣→🐓

so this little girl right here is just 5 days old and this right here is the same exact check at about 3 weeks old look at all these beautiful feathers coming in and this right here is the exact same chick at 8 weeks old today I'm going to be showing you how to raise these girls from start to finish so you can get unlimited delicious eggs right from your backyard now the reason I am so excited to bring you this video is because I am giving you a complete guide everything in one video and I'm taking you along for the entire multiple month process which is something that I found didn't really exist when I was trying to learn this and I had to piece together a lot of information and I made a lot of mistakes I've collected all of the information and skills that you need to really be successful at this which is going to be broken down into these sections in this video and the first section is why you would raise chicks because I'm sure there's some of you that are slightly on the edge personally I was on the edge for many years I was lucky enough to inher chickens and a chicken Co from the past owners so I was grandfathered into a system that was already working pretty well but I always thought it would be cool to raise chicks and these chickens were older and laying less eggs and that's the reality of chickens as they get older they lay less eggs which is why it's nice to bring in new chicks that are laying so many eggs per year when they are young which is the first reason you want to raise chicks at home you're going to get the best eggs of your life which you probably know by now another reason is if you have kids I mean your kid kids will be very excited to have some baby chicks around I get so excited and I pump my kids up for a few months before I get chicks and anticipation and it's such a fun thing to bond over and also getting them used to taking care of young animals is also a huge bonus but I would say the biggest hidden factor that I wasn't expecting was the feeling of self-sufficiency in raising an animal yourself once you get the supplies which are pretty inexpensive and you learn the skills and you go through the process you now have those skills for life and these are animals that can provide food that can provide fertilizer for your garden and for me a Suburban boy someone who did not grow up around farm animals knowing I have the ability to raise an animal that can provide for myself and my family really levels up my feeling of self-sufficiency which is a nice feeling to have especially with the modern food industry and factory farms and just the way things are heading these skills that have been lost by most humans over the years I think will be more essential moving forward in my opinion so when you actually commit to getting chicks the next question you'll need to answer is when you should get the chicks and the easiest way to think about it is just like growing a little vegetable seedling every Gardener knows timing is everything because a baby plant or seedling doesn't like temperatures that are too cold or temperatures that are too hot it will stunt or kill that plant you got to really nail that timing so it's a good climbing for the plant to thrive and baby chicks are no different they can't handle really cold temperatures they can't handle really hot temperatures so the most ideal time is spring to raise chicks take your last frost date and subtract say 5 to 6 weeks and that would be the earliest you want to raise them because you could start them inside and by the time they have all of their feathers which happens in about five or 6 weeks that's when they are Hardy enough to be outside in colder temperatures now this year I was a little bit overly anxious to get them especially cuz I was making this video so I got the very first batch of chicks that was delivered to my local Nursery at the end of November which brings me into the next point where do you find chicks how do you get them now there's three main options number one if you have a rooster and you have pre-existing chickens then your eggs can be fertilized and you can hatch your own baby chicks but if you're at that level you probably don't need this video at all the second way is ordering them online from some type of chick hat I've never done this personally but I know there's a lot of good sources that you can order from online which brings me into the Third Way and my favorite way which is picking them up from a local Hatchery or a local Nursery that gets a big shipment of chicks in at one time now I'm super lucky and I have a nursery like 5 minutes from here that in the spring gets new chicks every two weeks and what I do is I call them up and they tell me the breeds that they're getting in which brings me right into the next Point picking the right breed breed of chicken or chick now there are thousands of chicken breeds it is a rabbit hole to go down to or a chicken hole whatever you want to call it I'm not covering different breeds in this video cuz it would be way too long but what I will cover are just a few things to keep in mind when you are researching different chicken breeds on the internet which is the best place to do it number one is every chicken has a different tolerance to climate and weather some are more cold hearty some can handle more heat so of course you want to research that to make sure it works for you your climate number two is that different breeds have different temperaments which you start to understand when you have a bunch of different types of chickens some are super chill and friendly some are a little crazier some are a little bit more aggressive just another thing to keep in mind number three is that they all lay different amounts of eggs per year and my favorite thing about picking chicken breeds is that they lay different color eggs so you can pick out breeds depending on the color egg and you can have rainbow eggs which now after a few years of getting different breeds I officially rainbow eggs which is a dream come true the two breeds that were in this week in my Nursery were americanas which are super friendly they lay blue and green eggs super cool patterns really beautiful chickens similar to an Easter eggar breed which I already have and I love and there were also some white leg horns another great breed they lay white eggs and they're just a more standard white feathered chicken and in New York state where I'm at the law is that you have to buy at least six chicks at a time which is a nice little flock that they can stay warm together and also it helps protect from people just buying one chick and not actually being serious about it if you're buying six chicks you're committed that's a serious Endeavor right there all right so let's talk about supplies and food which can definitely be a little bit overwhelming at first there's a lot of different routes and options you can take here now my setup that I'm going to show you is something that I have refined over the years and I think it is such a good system for say 4 to 20 chicks this system is in expensive and it's very efficient and it starts with the Bruder which is basically the enclosure or the home for your chicks to keep them warm to keep them nice and cozy and safe in those early days now there are a lot of different options for chick brers the first time I raised chicks I started off in a little plastic tub like this which you see a lot I moved on from this very quickly because the chicks they get big fast and they're not going to have space after like one week now I love something like this which is sold as a collapsible dog or just animal crate you can get these on Amazon and all of the supplies are listed below in the description these are not super expensive but they are very sturdy and high quality and will last years and most importantly your chicks can be inside one of these things for their entire first few weeks until they go outside so this is really the only Bruder you'll need and you need some type of bedding at the bottom of your brooder there's a lot of different options out there by far my favorite are some finer wood shavings you need something soft enough that their little feet can handle but what I love about wood shavings is that they absorb so much of the odor to the point where you barely can smell it and then you can just throw all the wood chips in a compost pile and boom perfect compost now moving on to a heat source which is very important without proper heat since we've ripped these chicks away from their mother the chicks will die quickly now traditional Brer setup us uses one of these heat lamps like they had at the nursery I think these work better for a larger amount of chicks but they are a little bit more dangerous cuz it's just a hot light bulb that's sitting there and they are a little harder to adjust vers something like this which I love and I've used for years these are adjustable little heat trays which in my opinion is a safer option at home especially if you're leaving the brooder for multiple hours at a time you want a really safe option and the legs are adjustable so you continue to adjust them as the chicks grow inside and what I do is I put them on an angle and the chicks huddle right under the heat tray and since it's on an angle they can find the perfect amount of heat that is right for them at that time now for a watering system you can go super inexpensive and just put some water in a bowl that's going to work but I love these little chicken pin pecker things because it keeps the chicks busy which they really like and wood chips and food can KN get in the water source so it keeps things much cleaner and this is optional but you can buy these little electrolyte vitamin packs that you can pour in the water for say the first week of the chick's life just to give them a little boost in the early days now same thing for feeders there's a lot of options out there I actually had ordered a feeder that was in the mail so I had to start out with just a bowl of food which works but is not a great option because the chicks can step on the food they can poop in the food and you want to avoid that so after a few days it was replaced with a feeder like this where they Peck at but they don't actually walk in and one thing that I do build custom is this right here it's just 2x4s with some hardware cloth on top and I put the feeder on top of that so when they walk up the wood chips fall right through the holes and it keeps the feed much cleaner now for the actual food type you can order this online you can get it at your Nursery or Hatchery you can go organic you can go non-organic you can go medicated or non-medicated these are all options you can research this yourself and pick the best option for you but you do want to get chick specific feed for the first few weeks of their life because it's just a finer feed it has the right nutrition for chicks vers older egg laying hands and then once they're older you can convert them over to a standard chicken feed all right girls I've got your cozy home set up for survival we need heat water and food and protection safety from other animals or creatures am man so now we have a very important job this is an alien world right now we need to get them introduced to the heat we need to get them introduced to the food and the water kind of interested to see what happens just without me interrupting it all just letting them discover on their own and then I'll start helping them out all right they found the food yep we've got our first girl peckin okay food is the easiest you can smell that you can see they're a bit cold right now so they're just huddling together they don't know about this yet all right it's time to play dad so I'll just take him over to the water there you go this sound really triggers them in a good way you can see they're super interested just from that pecking noise and they're all coming over just kind of get them over there introduce them into some water these girls be introduced we've got our first pack all right so you can see they're huddled over here they haven't figured out the warmth so I'm just going to take it put it right over them they're probably super cold and now they're going to understand that this thing right here equals warm and they've already calmed down a little bit from that warmth so they're enjoying that all right so we're already on day five just an update I added another heater on another Outlet this is totally a precautionary thing not mandatory but in this early stage if this went out your chicks would be in big trouble if you're not there to check it so this extra heater gives me a little piece of mind they're all hanging out under here they are doing great let's grab one hey girls oh you're hiding there we go they already have few little feathers there so cute and you can see they're very happy they're super active they go from states of just being under the heater to eating to drinking living their best life and if you zoom in little poops everywhere which is great but there's no smell these pine shavings really absorb the smell which is why I love them it's funny they're under the other heater now all right two we update look at the girls they are happy they are certainly growing see if I can grab one they're quick out oh ah he got one you can see feathers coming in really nice first starting to leave which is sad but good for their warmth they can fly now 2 weeks in and it's really the first time things are starting to smell in here I mean there's a lot of poop that has absorbed into these pine chips so anytime it starts to smell like this which is going to happen more and more quickly as they get bigger of course I'll replace these wood shavings and the easiest way I found to do this is just to kind of move everything aside and you can leave the chicks in there if your Brer is big enough cuz they'll just kind of stay in one little corner and you can shovel out all of the dirty wood chips pop them in some type of container which we're going to compost and then replace it with some brand new shavings one more note is that I can continue to have been doing it but higher this a little bit you still want a nice angle so they can choose where they want to be in relation to the actual top of the heat lamp but just make sure you're adjusting your heat source as they get get bigger all right day 24 so One update is the top stays closed now because you can see they're getting big they will fly out at this point so this is when you really got to watch their food and water intake cuz they go through a lot of water every day and a lot of food I also can introduce some little meal worms little protein snack now that they're a little older toss those over to them let's see if I can catch one they're getting kind of fast oh all right so there you go day 24 still some fuzz but really developing those feathers nicely almost fully feathered can fly very well now at this point timing wise it's still pretty cold outside at night and they're not fully feathered so I'm going to keep them in here the weather's going to warm up a little bit and I'm going to start working on my integration setup outside and I'll keep you updated with that all right so the chicks are a little over 40 days old now you can see they are fully feathered they look like an adult chicken just smaller which means they are much harder with all those feathers they can handle cold temperatures now everyone's timing is going to be different depending on when you get chicks I do like raising chicks in the spring so when it gets warmer they're ready to go outside right away I was a little bit anxious this year and got them just a bit earlier and it's the end of March right now and it just got super cold out of nowhere so what I'm doing is sort of hardening the chickens off just like you would harden off a PL plant from say being inside growing under a light you wouldn't throw that right into the harsh environment just yet that's what I'm doing with these chicks even though they probably would be fine right now out in the coupe just to make the process a little bit more seamless and more comfortable for them I've transferred the exact same setup I have just out into the garage so they're outside it's colder but it's still protected I can shut the garage door there's no wind getting in here it's just a little less harsh than the actual Coupe but remember once thr out of the safety of your home being inside they're open to Predators out here so the top will be getting shut always I've had Hawks swoop into the garage and try to get one of these chicks which is insane and I'll close the garage door so no ground Predators can get in at night like a raccoon or a fox or whatever and they'll acclimate to the outdoors and hopefully in 2 3 weeks I'll transfer them to the coupe all right the final piece to this puzzle of raising chicks is integrating them into the coupe this is my coupe right here this is my chicken run and these are my older chickens which makes this process a little more challenging if you don't have any existing chickens you just have to make sure your chicken coup is predator proof meaning from the top there's some type of protection from aerial predators and you want some protective fencing buried underneath the ground at least a foot for ground Predators so they can't dig under and get your chickens now when dealing with an existing flock which is my scenario you do not want to rush this process of getting getting your chicks right in there I've learned those lessons the hard way the term pecking order is a real thing chickens will bully each other especially bigger ones to smaller ones happening right here actually these little girls are running around avoiding this little bully oh stop it stop it now the best way to integrate younger chicks with older chicks is to slowly get them used to each other I've had a lot of people comment in and say you can just put the younger chicks into the chicken CP at night with the older chickens and they wake up and they're all a happy family I have not tried that that scares me a little bit especially with chicks that are still small like these girls what I like to do is create an enclosure you can do this with any type of fencing that gives them their own protected space right up against your other chickens so they can smell each other they can just Vibe out without actually being able to attack each other and you want to make sure that that space is enclosed on top because chickens can fly and then what I did is just built this little mini Coupe out of some scrap pieces of wood in my garage and I'm popping that in there for the time being to give them their own space until they're ready to go into the bigger Coupe and I'll keep the chicks in there with their own food their own water source for at least a week and then I'll start opening the door just slightly so they can still get in and drink their own water eat their own food but then they can also start integrating into the bigger run with the older girls and you just want to keep an eye on this process do not rush it you don't want to go through the entire process of raising these beautiful little chicks and then they take permanent damage from the older girls and then over time as the little chicks get bigger and they start getting used to the older girls that's when you can remove the gate and they can all just live together so here we go little chicks doing their thing older girls where are the other ones look at that flight I'm still keeping this up for the time being until they're a little bigger and I feel confident to just remove everything for complete integration and that is it hopefully this video has helped you just feel a little bit more confident on your journey and if you want more content on self-sufficiency just click this video right here

Channel: Pro Home Cooks

Views: 39,827

Keywords: pro home cooks, mike g, mike greenfield, lifebymikeg, chicks, chickens, homesteading, chicken run, organic eggs, chicken coop, brooder, raising chicks at home, ameraucana chicken, white leghorn, chicken raising, brooder set up, home brooder, chicken guide, chick integration, complete chick guide, complete chicken guide, how to raise chicks, how to raise chickens, unlimited eggs, backyard farming

Id: VUb6OVaIi0I

Length: 18min 29sec (1109 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2024