Feeding chicks with separated ingredients experiment (title changed)

[saysfaa]

I don't have a broody, unfortunately. I'm planning to brood them in the entryway (garden tool end) of coop and outside. With a wool hen as long as they need it.

They will have three hens to watch outside and through a wire fence in the shed and outside.

The hens are not very good at foraging, as best I can tell. I didn't let them out when we had zoning council that was very strongly against chickens. I think I had them legally (via loophole) but I'm sure the zoning people would not agree and didn't want risk what the courts might say. There are different people on the zoning now. So the hens were over two years old before they had a chance to start learning how to forage. They've figured out quite a bit in the last year or so. The chicks should have better than no examples.

The foraging is not ideal. A "nice lawn" is very important to my husband. I would rather have better habitat for birds and bees but am happy that he is willing to compromise too. I do have a little woodlot, a garden, a big compost pile, a messy area under a tree, and fields on two sides. I thought they would use the fields more than they do. I guess they don't like the tall grass; maybe the chicks will be more comfortable in it.

I originally planned to take the chickens to my farm when I went - it is about a half hour away. That didn't happen but maybe it will work with these chicks. I found a person who did that and got a few ideas on how to do it without stressing the chicks much.

 

[Perris]

With a wool hen as long as they need it.

what's a wool hen?

 

[saysfaa]

A box with strips of a wool scarf (shawl, actually) hanging from the top to almost the floor - about the height of the chicks' backs as they lay down. One side of the box is open.

The wool insulates so the chicks' body heat warms them.

It works well if one gets the proportions* right and as long as one allows for the short time it takes the space to warm up. The chicks don't know to seek it out like they would a heat source that radiates warmth.

*Proportions being things like thickness and density of the wool strips as well as the size of the box. The number of chicks matters also.

This is the thread about the first time I tried it (when my current hens were chicks).

 

[saysfaa]

I chose next Tuesday to pick the chicks up at the hatchery. I think they will hatch today (Sunday) or tomorrow so they should be ready to eat for a meal on Wednesday.

I have small glass bowls similar to those in Debbie292d's picture but I think the bowls will too big to start with. I have plates with small rims to try. And I bought mini muffin tins at an estate sale last week. I could try the floor (from the chick's perspective - it will actually be a puppy pad on cardboard for the first few days). Or off my hand, maybe. I have doubts about how well any of the choices will work.

For the first day, I'm thinking: cooked egg yolk, cooked egg white, cultured milk of some sort, clover leaves from the yard, bread crumbs from bread I bake from hard red wheat ground that day or steel cut oats if I don't bake that day. Also, black raspberries from our bushes.

Maybe purslane, lambs quarters, or curly dock from the yard instead of the clover.

And grit.

And fresh water, of course.

I'm still working on how to offer the mineral salt. I might try it plain and see what happens.

 

[saysfaa]

Change of plan. I started home a day early to get ahead of the remnants of the hurricane. The chicks aren't available for pick up on Mondays.

So, no chicks this summer. Maybe next spring.