First Month Mistakes

[Lemon-Drop]

*sigh* This is less advice, and more of a prank I pulled on myself. So my polish got her head pecked, tiny amount of blood, but I'm a noob so I'm in panic mode. So I'm on my bathroom floor with a little struggle nugget and a new bottle of blu kote. So I'm trying to get it started and won't spray. I sprayed it into my sink without thinking. So uhh, don't dye your sink blue

I was putting some blu kote on a hens comb once. She shook her head-I had blue hands, arms, legs, and a face for a few days.

 

[Bkaye]

Don’t put blu kote on white chick. It made the pecking worse. Seemed like it just gave them a target. Ended up having to separate her for a few days.

 

[Battlepants]

Biggest lesson that I have learned from raising chicks...
Don't go to the farm supply store when they have chicks in stock! They will sneak into your car every time!

Elevated food and water is a wonderful thing - much less cleanup of the water in particular.

And sometimes it's ok to let them run out of food in the feeder - makes them source food from all the stuff they kicked to the floor.

Waterproofing the brooder is unnecessary - my first setup was plastic mat pieces with a tarp underneath. Slowly came to the realization that chickens aren't mammals and their waste easily sticks to wood shavings rather than going everywhere like a dog peeing on stuff.

 

[3KillerBs]

The first time I had chickens I had someone else brood them for me because I couldn't keep them in my house. I had no idea that I could have brooded them right in the coop!

Brood outdoors -- easier to keep things clean and give them space.

 

[sdm111]

Chicks don't require at much heat as is commonly advised. Marbles or aquarium glass rocks in waterers so they don't fall in and drown. And put the waterer on a saucer or something to get it up a little bit for cleaner water. Ditch the incubator for brooding hens

 

[micstrachan]

Great idea for a thread @Kiki ! We're adding it to this week's newsletter

Newsletter? Do we need to sign up to receive it? I get other NYC things, but I’m not sure about this one. Or it’s entirely possible I’m just crazy. LOL.

 

[Lemon-Drop]

Newsletter? Do we need to sign up to receive it? I get other NYC things, but I’m not sure about this one. Or it’s entirely possible I’m just crazy. LOL.

I was curious about this, too.

I did a bit of searching around... I found that if I clicked this link:

here)

Then I got a popup asking if I wanted it. (Of course, I said yes!)

I don't know that I've ever seen it before.

 

[rosemarythyme]

My biggest mistake was brooding our first chicks indoors.

- I really thought I was going to burn down the bathroom, the heat lamp was so intense. It actually burned so hot that the red coating burned off completely. At least I was able to "fix" that with a much lower wattage bulb from the reptile section of the pet store.

- I also thought (like many) that I had plenty of time to finish the coop - welp hubby and I ended up building it last minute in the rain because we had emergency water damage in the house and the only bath/shower that wasn't impacted... was the one the chicks were brooding in.

- And after kicking the chicks out, I had to scrub chick dander off the shower walls (it spread a good 5' up), across the floor and all the way to the sink across from the shower.

 

[CFLRanching]

Biggest lesson that I have learned from raising chicks...
Don't go to the farm supply store when they have chicks in stock! They will sneak into your car every time!

Elevated food and water is a wonderful thing - much less cleanup of the water in particular.

And sometimes it's ok to let them run out of food in the feeder - makes them source food from all the stuff they kicked to the floor.

Waterproofing the brooder is unnecessary - my first setup was plastic mat pieces with a tarp underneath. Slowly came to the realization that chickens aren't mammals and their waste easily sticks to wood shavings rather than going everywhere like a dog peeing on stuff.

 

[Ursuline Chick]

My first chicken was a feral Cockerel. We were totally unprepared, as we had no idea we were about to keep chickens. I would have built a coop and run first. And would have made sure I had all the supplies I needed, instead of having to run out the next day to get everything I could think of at the time. I would have purchased a few full grown hens right away, instead of running out the back door every time the Cockerel got bored and pecked on the glass back door, because he wanted to play.