Vaccines? Brooding area with lid?

Didnt want to get into the raising chicks thing but it seems we dont have a choice. Here is my dilemma, i have 7 house dogs and nowhere BUT inside the house to put the chicks... is there a brooding thing i can put some kind of lid or cover on to keep the dogs out?

Also we are looking at ordering from Meyers, do they vaccinate their chicks? What about worming? Do i need to deworm them and vaccinate them myself?

Rae, what does your brooder look like? Some people build brooders out of wood or wood and wire with doors in the sides. Others use all kinds of different things for brooders. With seven house dogs you do have issues. Can you use a spare bathroom and keep the doors locked?

If you are getting them from Meyers or any major hatchery you do not have to worm them. Any major hatchery is going to follow biosecurity to a degree that worming is absolutely not an issue.

I don’t know what vaccinations Meyer’s offers. I never get my chicks vaccinated but if you are going to get them vaccinated, the hatchery is the place to do it. The common ones most hatcheries offer are Coccidiosis and Marek’s. Whether you vaccinate or not is a personal decision. If you want them vaccinated see what is available, what it costs, and whether it is worth it to you.

We dont even have a brooder yet. We are considering just using a giant plastic tub or maybe a dog pen or buying one of those plastic octogon kit things from TSC for 20.00. My house is currently being renovated so keeping dogs out of any specific room is alnost an impossibility.

If you're in the middle of renovating and you'd rather not have chicks (I think?), maybe it'd be a better idea to wait until later when you do have things more in order to be raising chicks? In my area at least they sell chicks from spring through fall, so lots of time to get them.

Another option is to brood them outdoors either in a smaller temporary set up or in the coop itself. I don't have any experience with that but there's a lot of people on here who do who can probably help you out with that. I plan on doing my next batch outdoors because after dealing with the smell and dust from 3 chicks in a bathroom, I never want to do that again!

Re: vaccines/worming, you'd have to check with each hatchery to see what their policy is. I bought my chicks from a local feed store and they order all their chicks vaccinated for Marek's. I have never wormed my chickens and don't see a reason to do so unless there's an issue.

Does anyone know by chance if chicks from Tractor Supply have been vaccinated or wormed?

I know you can order year around the issue we have is that there are a very limited number of the breeds we want left and if we want any we have to order soon.

The only reason we were not wanting chicks to begin with is because we figured with their specialized needs it would be extremely overwhelming to take care of them in addition to it being our first year even having chickens.

Rae Scott said:

I know you can order year around the issue we have is that there are a very limited number of the breeds we want left and if we want any we have to order soon.

The only reason we were not wanting chicks to begin with is because we figured with their specialized needs it would be extremely overwhelming to take care of them in addition to it being our first year even having chickens.

Click to expand...

It sounds like you have concerns about "specialized care" can you expand on that thought?


Do you have a coop and run ready for them?
It's always exciting getting chicks - what breeds have you decided on?

edited because I haven't had coffee and can't spell!

I have just heard so many things can go wrong with chicks from disease to heat to food to death in transit, and with straight run eggs you have zero clue what your getting, that we thought looking towards pullets would be better but none are available. We dont have the coop built yet. We are waiting on tax return to get the lumber and stuff to build it and the run.which it should be here in a couple weeks and we were looking at mid to late Aprilship date but ordering now.

We want 1 each of Easter egger, Black Austrolorp, Lavender Orpington, Buff Orpington, Olive egger. The LO and Oe are sold out and the EEs are rather limited.

It sounds like you have concerns about "specialized care"  can you expand on that thought?



I was thinking along the same lines. If the brooder is set up where cleaning isn’t a big problem, they aren’t all that hard or time-consuming to take care of. A larger brooder can help with that. Make sure the waterer doesn’t leak and get everything wet. I don’t brood in the house, my 3’ x 6’ brooder is built into the coop, is elevated, and has a ½” hardware cloth floor so the poop drops straight through to plastic bins from Walmart which makes cleaning extremely easy. I have 22 six-week-olds in it now and plan to move the cockerels to my unheated grow-out pen later today. My lows are forecast to be below freezing for the next week. I feed and water twice a day. That’s it for taking care of them. It’s not that hard and not that time-consuming, but you can set up a brooder that requires a lot more effort.

One problem I face brooding outside is temperature swings. You may have the same issue since you are renovating but hopefully to a lesser degree. Earlier this year I had a low of 18 but two days later the high was 81. In your brooder you need one area warm enough in the coolest temperatures but another area cool enough in the warmest temperatures. Usually inside a house that isn’t much of an issue but with your renovations you may have a lot of doors opening and closing. Depending on how you plan to heat the chicks, a larger brooder can often help with that. There are a lot of different ways you can provide that warm spot and let the rest cool down.

I don’t know your schedule for finishing those renovations. You might call Meyer and see if they will work with you on a later order so you are under less stress and can get the breeds you want. I don’t know if they will work with you or not, but what does it hurt to ask?

You will read all kinds of things on the internet and this forum. You are dealing with living animals so practically anything can happen, and you have human beings handling the chicks during shipment. Disasters do happen. Most of what you read are the horror stories where things go wrong. The vast majority of times nothing goes wrong. You receive living healthy chicks. I’ve had chicks mailed three times, once each from Cackle, Meyer, and Ideal. I received a total of 70 chicks in those three orders. All of them arrived alive but I did have one from Ideal that died a few days later. Some chicks hatch with something wrong and are just not able to make it, but that’s not nearly as often as you sometimes think from posts on here. As long as you provide appropriate food, clean water, a spot for them to warm up when they need to and are able to get away from the heat if they need to, provide predator protection, and keep the brooder dry you are unlikely to have serious problems. Clean water and a dry brooder are extremely important. Chicks aren’t that hard if you can provide the basics, but some people on here can really scare you.

One thing I recommend is to time your order so they do not ship close to a postal holiday. The number of horror stories on here go up around postal holidays.

Good luck with it.