FREE CHICKENS!
(Page 2 of 4)
The rest of our "waiting period" was spent in a search for
information. The neighboring farmers' wives who raised
chickens were all pessimistic: Our "brooder" wouldn't be
warm enough, we were told . . . the chicks would get
diseases and die. It was all quite depressing.
RELATED CONTENT
A beginner's guide to raising rabbits, including a rabbit barn, pens, feeders and waterers, breedin...
Newly hatched chicks can survive about three days without food or water, so they can be shipped fro...
If growing your own food means more to you than starting a vegetable garden, consider raising broil...
This four-part special section tells you how to raise backyard chickens, build a portable mini-coop...
Sheep are fantastic animals, and make great additions to most homesteads. They provide nutritious m...
A HALE AND HARDY BROOD
Nevertheless, both Tom and I were very excited when Friday
finally arrived, and we hurried to the hatchery for our
formal introduction to 75 yellow puffs of down. I would've
sworn that the small box we carried home couldn't hold 75
chicks, but we counted 78 when we put our foundlings into
their new home.
What a racket the little critters made! Their chorus began
in earnest every time anyone opened the "roof". So, I cut
an "air/peep hole" high on each side of the box ... to
allow the condensation to escape, and to let us watch the
chicks without setting off a pandemonium of peeping.
The newspapers on the floor had to be changed every three
or four days, but—though we still lacked hay or straw
to use for litter- we soon learned to strew dried grass,
leaves, and even light dirt on top of the paper to absorb
the droppings and keep the floor dry. When it was time to
freshen up, we simply lifted the newspapers by the corners
and put the entire nitrogen-rich mess (yesterday's news and
all) into the compost heap.
Our brood was initially fed commercial chicken starter that
we purchased at the hatchery as a requested "payment" for
the free birds. The contents printed on the bag, however,
didn't impress us, so Tom and I found some oats to
supplement the starter feed. One longtime chicken raiser
assured us the oats would puncture our little birds' crops,
but he was wrong ... as were all the other "experts" who
forecast disease and death.
After three weeks, we moved all 78 chicks into a spare 3' X
5' building with two south-facing windows. The southern
exposure-plus the warm spring nights—allowed us to
eliminate the heat bulb in the chickens' new quarters.
By this time, our fledglings were consuming great
quantities of both food and drink, so we built two more
feeders and another waterer, all of which had to be
refilled every 24 hours. Our first casualty occurred along
about then. Cause of death: unknown ... but the other 77
were thriving.
