Country Living in a Cariboo Valley

Homesteading in BC

  • How to Get Started
  • Vegetable Gardening
  • Preserving Food
  • Recipes
  • Homemade Wine Recipes
  • About Us
  • Work With Me
  • Shop
    • Vegetable Garden Planner Printable: Grow Your Best Garden Ever
    • Grow Enough Food for a Year
    • Delicious Dandelions: A Recipe Collection
    • Dirt to Dollars: Selling at the Farmers Market
    • 8 Pounds in 8 Weeks: Raising Chicks for the Dinner Table
    • Making Wild Wine
    • Build a Hanging Chicken Feeder
    • 15 Things to Know About Living in the Country

The Meat Bird Chicks Have Arrived

By Annie

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through these links, I may earn a small commission.

I went to the local Post Office this morning and picked up 25 chicks, sent to me  by a hatchery in Alberta. Normally, a hatchery will add a chick or three to the order, in case some die during transit.

The chicks, after hatching, can live up to 3 days without food or water, due to the nutrients they received while in the shell.

The order this year contained 26 chicks. I’m hoping for no failing chicks!

 

What to have ready when meat bird chicks arrive

We set up a small brooder this year, because we ordered only the 25. In years past, we have ordered over 100 sometimes, so we made a brooder using a 4 x 8 sheet of OSB as the brooder floor.

You can also buy a chick brooder – they have several choices on Amazon.

 

 

brooder setup

 

 

Here’s the brooder we made in 2010, you can see it is a lot larger, but you need to have your brooder large enough for all the birds to have a bit of space.

It was so large that we used OSB for the sides of the brooder, instead of cardboard.

You can see there is lots of room there for the chicks. They will be just fine in here for about two weeks. Eventually, they will get moved to the barn.

 

 

be ready when your chicks arrive

 

Here’s a picture showing just what you want to see when you look into the brooder.

How do things look to you? Do you see anything out of the ordinary? Do the chicks look all right?

 

what to look for when your chicks arrive

 

 

All of the 4 important things are shown in the picture:

 

1) Some of the chicks are at the feeder eating.

2) Some of the chicks are at the waterer drinking.

3) Some of the chicks are resting.

4) There is a thermometer inside the brooder so temperature can be easily checked.

 

Keep a careful watch on the temperature. If you see the chicks crowding around the outside walls, it means the chicks are too hot and we would need to raise the heat lamp a bit.

If the chicks are crowding under the heat lamp, that means the chicks are cold and are trying to warm up.

Watch the video above that shows exactly what we do when receiving chicks – from taking them out of their shipping box right up until they are comfortable in their brooder.

 

 

 

 

Want to read more about how to raise meat birds? Check out our book – it has everything you need to know!

Just click to Share

132 shares
  • Share74
  • Tweet

Filed Under: Raising Meat Birds

Connect With Us!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Search this site

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Search in posts
Search in pages

Our Most Popular Posts

How to Preserve Garlic in Oil – and Other Ways to Store Garlic

a open jar of pickled brussel sprouts on a counter

Easy Pickled Brussels Sprouts Recipe (Water Bath Canning)

Privacy Policy

Read about our Privacy Policy

Disclosure

Please note that some of this site’s links are affiliate links, and CountryLivinginaCaribooValley.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. At NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU, I will earn a small commission, if you purchase them. I recommend them as they are good products.

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2023