What to Do When Your Chicks Arrive

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Do you know what to do when your chicks arrive? Be ready for them! Be as sure as you can that you have everything you need. Everything MUST be in place when your chicks arrive at their new home!

We keep our chicks in the basement for the first 2 weeks. This is because in our climate, it is usually still too cold down at the barn for day old chicks.

We can do a better job of regulating the temperature if we have them in the basement. People have kept their chicks in the bathtub, so there are options.

We start heating the room a couple of days before the chicks arrive. We have concrete walls in this part of the basement (with an outside door) so it is usually cool in this room.

A couple of mornings before the chicks are expected, I start shooting the temperature of the brooders with this…a handheld temperature gun….93, just a tad too high (we want 90), so I turn the heat down in the room just a bit.

If it’s too warm in the room, you may need to raise the heat lamps. It’s a bit finicky, but after you do it a few times you get the hang of it.

If it’s too cold in the room, lower the heatlamps. I’ll check the temperature probably every time I go to check on the chicks.

Here they are in their delivery box – chicks can live up to 72 hours after hatching without food or water. Amazing, isn’t it?

This is the scene you want to see one minute after you start putting the chicks in their house. Lots of chicks around the waterer, drinking away.

You will find that they will be very thirsty after their road trip to your house.

A few minutes later, they should have found the feeder.