Simple Guide To Caring For Your Baby Chicks By Feather Lover Farms

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Welcome to Feather Lover Farms first Blog post! We welcome everyone to comment below and ask questions or give others tips & advice on how you have successfully cared for your baby chicks when they arrive. 

Items You'll Need To Raise Your Baby Chicks- (All can be purchased at a local feed or pet store)
Brooder (large plastic container, large cardboard box, kiddy pool)
Pine Shavings (Not Cedar!)
Chick Feeder
Chick Waterer
Chick Starter Feed
250-watt Infrared Heat Lamp or Brinsea EcoGlow Brooder type heater

 

Raising baby chicks is an amazing experience, especially if you have children. Raising extremely rare baby chicks from Feather Lover Farms is a whole new level! Once you order chicks from us, here's some simple and helpful tips to guide you along your journey of caring for your rare baby chicks the day you pick them up at your local post office. 

To start, you'll need some preparation. Figure out where you'll keep your baby chicks the first few weeks until they are big enough to go outside in the chicken coop, usually 6-8 weeks or so. A garage or shed are common and work well as they are free of drafts but still have ventilation. Next you'll need a brooder (container to keep them in), large plastic bin, large cardboard box or plastic dog pools are popular. You'll also need pine shavings as bedding, a chick feeder and chick waterer, chick starter feed, and a heat lamp. We recommend going to your local feed store. They usually have everything you'll need to raise baby chicks. Feather Lover Farms also recommends you use a 250-watt infrared heat lamp and bulb that you can usually purchase at your local feed store as well. Be careful when using a infrared heat lamp as they can be a fire hazard if you're not cautious. They work extremely well for a good spread of heat for your fragile chicks. If you don't want to risk using the heat lamp or the high wattage, there are other options. There are some excellent options on Amazon Prime like a Brinsea EcoGlow Brooder heater, Electric Mama Hen Brooder Heater, and a Premier Chick Heating Plate Kit Brooder. All great options and are much safer and lower wattage than than the infrared heat lamp for chick brooders. 

Now that you have your brooder set up, your ready for your chicks arrival. The early stages of a baby chicks life is by far the most critical, especially the first few days and you should be giving them extra attention during this time. Once your baby chicks arrive, place them one by one in their new brooder home. Dip their beak in their water dish once or twice to let them drink and also give them an idea of where their food and water is. Their feed and water dish should not be directly under their heat source but should not be too far away either. Your baby chicks need to be at around 95 degrees their first week of life. A thermometer will help by placing it directly under the heat source of where they will be on the ground. Each week, you can lower the temperature 5 degrees. For example, on the second week of raising your baby chicks, if you are using a heat lamp, you will have to physically raise the heat lamp to lower the temperature of where the chicks will be standing to about 90 degrees. A good way to judge the temperature is watching the chicks. If they are huddled up under the heat, they are too cold. If they are spread far away from the heat or breathing heavily, they are too hot. If they are randomly all over the place, the temperature is probably perfect. 

That's basically the main things you'll need to know when caring for your rare baby chicks your ordered from Feather Lover Farms! If you have questions, please contact us as we are always happy to help. If you have any advice for others reading this, please comment below. We appreciate you taking your time reading our first blog post! Thank you to all of our baby chick customers for helping make Feather Lover Farms possible.

Please comment below. We'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences on raising baby chicks. 

Have A Blessed Day!

Feather Lover Farms


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