How to Succeed in Raising Laying Hens from Chicks

Raising chickens from tiny balls of fluff to egg laying hens is one of the most enjoyable things you can do on a farm. Whether you mail-order day-old chicks, purchase them from the farm store, or hatch them yourself, this blog should help you raise your own flock of happy, healthy, egg laying hens!

How to Get Them

The three most popular ways of obtaining chicks are:

• Mail order

• Farm Stores

• Hatching your own

You may also be able to find a breeder who hatches chicks.

Mail Order

This is likely the way to go if you are looking for a rare breed or want to get more than about 20 chicks. Mail order chicks tend to have the highest mortality rates, however, sometimes they are the only option. An advantage with mail order is that you can almost always pick to order just hens!

If you do mail order, I recommend ordering 25% more chicks than you plan on keeping. We have ordered from both Hoovers Hatchery, McMurray, and Mt. Healthy. Hoovers has the best prices that we've seen, but their website is not very good.

McMurray has a great website, but they have higher prices, and their chicks don't seem as healthy as the other two hatcheries. Mt. Healthy has comparable prices to Hoovers if you order 25 or more chicks of the same breed, but their website is even worse.

Farm Stores

Farm stores are nice because you can pick up the chicks right away, and they usually have the choice to get just hens too. The disadvantage is that they usually only carry a few breeds, and in small numbers.

We had a good experience with farm store chicks, none of the ones we got died as chicks, however I have seen chicks at a farm store that did not look good, and someone else said they saw the same thing. So just be sure if you decide to get your chicks from a farm store that they are healthy looking and alert.

Hatching Your Own

While hatching your own eggs can be very rewarding, I wouldn't recommend doing it that way at first unless you can buy hatching eggs in person from a knowledgeable breeder. Mail order eggs tend to have lower hatch rates. When you hatch your own you will also likely end up with about half roosters to deal with.

Setting Up

You don't need much to get started with chicks, but there are two items you may not know about that are very helpful in raising happy, healthy chicks!

A Chick Stand

This is simply a plastic mesh stand for the chick's feeder and waterers, but it reduces the number of times you have to clean them since it helps keep the shavings out of them.

Even day-old chicks love to scratch their bedding everywhere, and clean food and water will result in healthier chicks!

A Heat Plate

This device is much safer than traditional heat lamps due to the lower surface temperature. Heat plates are also much more natural, as they are about as close to a mother hen as you can get with artificial heating. We have used it with success; however, we aren't using it right now because we got the small size which only fits about 20 chicks, and we currently have about 50 chicks.

The Brooder

A brooder is where you will keep your chicks until they are big enough to go outside. There are probably hundreds of different brooder plans available, as well as many you can purchase, but you should keep a few things in mind when deciding on one.

The first is predator protection, I would highly suggest that you raise your chicks inside some sort of building, if you do, then the amount of protection the chicks need will be determined by what (if anything) could get in the building. Some other things to consider are space, ease of access, ease of cleaning, and ventilation.

You will need about 1/2 a square foot of floor space per chick. We built our current brooder in our barn out of plywood sheets, so it is draft proof and to help keep predators out. We put 1/2" netting over the top to keep out snakes and weasels and then put a variety of gate type things on top of that to keep larger animals out.

We didn't put a gate on it both because we didn't have time, and because we didn't want to risk someone leaving it open. It is next to our board rail wall for the goats, so we can use that as a ladder to get in, then we put a board on the inside of the brooder as a step down. It's definitely not ideal, but it works fine for now.

At some point we will probably make a bigger brooder, (and a sightlier roof). When we do, we will probably put a gate in and just put a short piece of plywood across it to keep the chicks in when we go in and out. When building your brooder, and deciding on location, make sure you are able to securely hang, as well as raise and lower, a heat lamp if you aren't using a heat plate.

Bedding

You can use pine shavings, peat moss, or sawdust as bedding. Pine shavings are usually the easiest to obtain, and they are what we use. You can use the deep bedding system for chicks, and it has been reported to increase their health. We hope to have a blog on this system sometime, but the idea is fairly simple.

Start with about 4 inches of bedding and simply add more on top as soon as the bedding looks or smells dirty. When you add more on top you only need to add about an inch or so. You only need to clean it out when the bedding level gets high enough to cause problems, such as allowing the chicks to escape.

Feed

Chicks need about 18% protein starter/grower crumbles until they start laying. We feed ours Nature's Best starter/grower crumbles from Tractor Supply. Food should be always available and can be provided to them in a regular feeder, although a chick feeder may help reduce waste.

Water

It is very important that you use a drown proof waterer for at least the first week. For some reason, chicks don't understand not to get in their water, and will likely drown in a regular waterer. Chicks can also dehydrate very easily, so be sure they have plenty of clean water at all times.

Also, avoid putting the waterer so close to the heat lamp that the water gets warm. You will need about a gallon of water for every 25 chicks. If you have more than 25 chicks it is best to provide multiple smaller waterers rather than one big one.

When the Chicks Arrive

Before you go to get your chicks, make sure everything in the brooder is all set up. When you pick your chicks up try not to make any stops on your way home, the faster they get warm and fed, the better.

If you mail ordered your chicks, or hatched your own, take each chick out of the box and dip its beak into the water so they know where it is right away. This is very important, the most common cause of death in chicks is not getting food and water fast enough.

Once all the chicks have had a drink you can show them the feed. To help them start eating faster you can put a piece of paper in their brooder and sprinkle some feed on it, this will encourage them to start eating, as chickens love pecking at food thrown on the ground.

Adjusting the Heat

If you are using a heat plate just keep it so the bottom of the plate is about at the chicks back. If you are using a heat lamp start with it about twelve inches off the bedding and watch the chicks, at first, they will probably all huddle under it but after a little bit they should start to spread out. If they seem to be forming a ring around it, avoiding being directly under it, it's probably at about the right height.

We are currently using a carbon fiber heater from premier1supplies.com since it was very cold, and we have a lot of chicks. Carbon fiber heaters generate a lot more heat than regular heat lamps.

We have found that if you keep the lamp low enough that it's too hot directly under it most of the time, if the temperature suddenly drops, they will have a warm place to go. If the chicks are still piling up under the heat lamp after about ten minutes, you probably need a second one. If they are spreading way out from it, it's probably too low.

Many people talk about raising the heat lamp to gradually reduce the temperature over several weeks. We have never done this; we just make sure that the brooder is big enough for the chicks to get away from the heat and put them outside at around three weeks, earlier if the weather is warm enough.

We haven't noticed any problems resulting from doing this, however, if you are maintaining a certain temperature in the entire brooder, (not recommended) you will definitely need to gradually lower the temperature, unless it's about 90 degrees outside, but then you probably don't need a heat source anyways.

Grit

While it is not absolutely necessary to provide grit for your chicks if they are only eating starter crumbles, it is beneficial to their health to start having grit as soon as possible. You can either give them a commercial chick grit, sand, or some rocky or sandy dirt. They will also quickly discover dust bathing if you provide the grit in a shallow pan.

Moving Outside

Depending on the weather and the housing you have available, you can put chicks outside as early as seven days. Below is a list of ages and the minimum temperature they can be out in, assuming they have a dry draft free place to go.

• 7-9 days - mid 80's

• 10-11 days - 80

• 12 days - high 60's

• 13 days - mid 50's

• 14-15 days - 50

• 16 days - mid 40's

• 17- 18 days - low 40's

• 19 days - high 30's

• 20 days - mid 30's

• 21 days - 32

When you decide your chicks are old enough to go outside, based on what the lows are at that time, wait for a nice sunny day, or at least a dry cloudy day. Try not to put them out if you are expecting a big rain or thunderstorm, that will just increase the chance of something going wrong.

You will probably have to keep them in a tractor of some sort until they are closer to laying age, as they will not only need more predator protection than full sized chickens, but they can also fit out through very small gaps.

The First Egg

Most chickens start laying between 4 1/2 and 6 months of age. When your chickens get close to laying age, it is a good idea to have nest boxes available with a fake egg in them, so they get the idea about where to lay. Once the first egg is layed you should switch them to layer feed.

Joining the flock

I would wait until your chicks reach egg laying age before you add them to your resident flock, especially if you have roosters, as the older ones can really bother, and even hurt, younger chickens.

They easiest way to add the new chickens is to put their tractor either in or next to the older chicken's pen for a few days, or until they don't seem to really notice each other, and then let the new chickens out after the older ones have gone to roost, or before they wake up in the morning.

Hopefully this blog helped you raise your own flock of happy, healthy, egg laying hens! If you have any questions, we would be happy to answer them!