RAISING BABY CHICK SUPPLIES
Here are some supplies that you will need to brood and raise your baby chicks.
1. You will need a brooder box. The brooder box can be a anything like a rubber maid plastic
tub or a type of wire cloth cage. The cage/tub should be about 1 1/2 to 2 feet wide, 3 1/2 to 4 feet
long and about 1 1/2 to 2 feet deep to be able to hold the pine shavings, chick waterer, and chick
feeder. If you use a plastic tub, make sure to find some hardware cloth or a grill/stove rack
to put on the top of it to keep out your house pets and to supply a hard secure surface for the
metal light dome to sit in place and not fall on top of the baby chicks.
2. You will need enough pine shavings to cover the bottom to about 3 inches. Cover the entire
starting area to a depth of 2-3 inches. Peat moss, wood chips and rice hulls work the best. You
can clean the pine shavings weekly to keep them fresh and clean.
3. You will need a chick waterer jar bottle and a chick waterer bases. You can use a quart
mason jar, a mayonaise jar, or a spaggetti jar for the chick waterer jar bottle. Do not let your
baby chicks run out of fresh clean water. Do not put open bowls of water in with your baby
chicks because they will get into the water and drown, or get wet and become cold and lethargic.
Baby chicks can not swim. It is recomended that you put the chick waterer jar and base up off
of the bottom of the brooder box by placing a plate or saucer face down in the brooder box then
putting the chick waterer on top of it. This will cut down on the amount of pine shavings that the
baby chicks will scratch into there drinking water about every hour or so.
4. You will need a chick feeder or some type of dish to put the medicated chick starter/grower
20 to 24% protein feed in. Keep the baby chicks plenty of fresh feed.
5. You will need a 100 watt standard light bulb, a 75 watt standard light bulb, a 60 watt standard
light bulb and a 40 watt standard light bulb. You use a 100 watt bulb for the first week, a 75
watt bulb for the second week, a 60 watt bulb for the third week, and a 40 watt bulb for the
fourth and last week. After this only a small 15 to 25 watt nightlight will do fine.
6. You will need a desk light or workshop type of metal light dome that will take the standard
watt light bulbs.
7. You will need a medicated chick starter/grower of 20 to 24% protein to start off your baby chicks.
8. Depending on the age of the baby chicks, it is a good idea to sprinkle dry raw oatmeal on the
chicks food several times a day. This will help alot with the rear end pasting called pasty butt
which does occur in some breeds of chicks for the first week or so.
9. You will not need chick grit or chick oyster shells at this time until they are much older. If you
raise your baby chicks in an above ground chicken coop and keep them there always, (meaning
they do not get out on the natural ground and eat dirt), then you will have to supply them with
chick grit along side of there food. The older chickens need the grit to help digest and grind up
there food.
10. That should be it. This is all you need to start raising your own backyard chicken flock.
We are a NPIP approved business as of September 2008. We are also licensed as certified Chick, Hatching Egg,
and Poultry Dealers.
