First Time Brooding Baby Chicks
Hyline Silver x Lohman Brown chicks
2nd of June 2018 marks a birthday for our 17 chickens. Perhaps a “hatchday” is a more appropriate word to mark the successful incubation and hatching of 13 yellow Hyline Silver x Lohman Brown and 4 black chicks from our own chickens, the breeds of which we are not sure of. Unfortunately, 1 of the HSxLB chicks has not made it past the first couple of days but it didn’t look very healthy from the very start, couldn’t lift his head properly and looked smaller and weaker than others.
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The 16 remaining chicks have spent 4 weeks in their indoor rabbit brooder under the heat stand (Brinsea Ecoglow 50 Chick Brooder). We had no accidents and no fatalities which I am extremely pleased about - this was our third incubation and brooding on our smallholding and this time around there were no lessons we had to learn that hard way! It felt that we were slowly becoming seasoned poultry keepers and I was so happy!
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The chicks were happily chirping away, growing at an alarming rate - the yellow chicks seemed to outgrow the darker chicks within days. I take that as a sign than the breed we chose is indeed a good dual purpose, fast growing, large bird that will lay good eggs and give us good meat.
Our first attempt at brooding chickens
Our two dogs took turns to jump up and supervise the little fluffy things in the cage, especially if they heard excited louder chirps or flapping wings! The chicks seemed to give them no attention but I did take a few baby chicks out of the brooder cage a couple of times to show the dogs what they were. What happened still amazes me: they both sat, gave me a paw and licked their lips as if I was holding a treat! The chicks made their way back into the brooder safely both times. As much as I trust my dogs, I think they are highly excited when it comes to baby chickens. We brooded quail and ducks before and the dogs are always funny - when the baby birds are in the brooder, the dogs are curious and interested but once we put them outside it’s as if they don’t exist anymore! Go figure!
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During the last week of their stay in the brooder, at the end of June 2018, I noticed that they had completely outgrown their heat stand. It was raised to its highest on the twisty legs and the chicks still had to bend and squeeze to fit underneath. They also developed some of their adult feathers by this point and the brooder to look very crowded so it was time to move them to the outdoor shed.
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Time to move chicks into a larger shed
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