Warning: Another long post! If it seems familiar to a few of you, that’s because I also posted this on Facebook’s BYC site.
It’s chick season again, and this year I’ll be joining those of you who are prepping, drooling over photos, and building your brooders and set-ups. What I’m going to say tonight is not going to make me popular, I know, but I’m sort of a Maverick in the way I see and do things. I tend to handle things by ignoring conventional wisdom and relying completely on common sense, which doesn’t always make me very popular.
There are going to be “those chicks” in the bins at feed stores. You know the ones I’m talking about...serious leg issues, blindness, crossed beaks.....those chicks. That doesn’t always mean that the hatchery or the feed store is at fault - those things can happen with chicks hatched by their moms, too. But the heartbreaking part is choosing only the healthiest chicks from the bin and leaving those weak or deformed chicks right where they are, especially if you are new to this whole chicken thing, just as she would take care of her healthy babies and ignore the weakest ones. I know! Gasp! “How can you be so cruel as to say that?”
I say it because it’s sometimes best to let the store deal with them, regardless of how inhumane that sounds. Yes, I know what the fates of those chicks are likely to be and no, I don’t like it any better than you do. I say it because taking care of a chick like that, especially if you’ve never done this before, can be overwhelming. The advice you get when you post will sometimes be so conflicting that you’ll end up more confused than before you asked your questions. “ Buy this, give him that, do this, don’t do that.” You can easily end up spending ten times more than the chick cost and still get no guarantee of improvement. But what else happens?
Well, for starters, that one chick in the corner of your brooder, the one you’re trying to save, is an inviting target for the others. They’ll often peck him until he’s bleeding, then go after those areas with a vengeance. So you figure you’ll just separate him from the rest. Then he’s unhappy, you’re unhappy, and it’s more difficult to care for chicks in two places than in one. I know too many folks who have nursed a sick chick back to health and who have said that even as adults, that one is still picked on, or is shy and doesn’t mingle with the others, or is afraid of the others and won’t even come out of the coop with them. What a miserable fate for a gregarious flock animal! A lame chick who retains that lameness into adulthood is more likely to be the first one picked off by predators. A crossbeaked chick will usually need special feedings for its entire life, and many of those never do get all of the nutrition they really need. And what’s going on with the healthy chicks while you’re focused so intently on that one? There are only so many hours in a day, you know, and your stress level is bound to increase tenfold as you work constantly to make that one chick better.
Can it be done? Of course it can. And we hear repeatedly how that one chicken became a favorite. I guess what I am saying applies more to those of you new to this entire adventure rather than those with more experience. Yes, even novices have successfully rehabbed a sick, injured, or deformed chick, but not without some serious commitment and trade offs. I know from experience. I had a chick with a serious injury. He froze his feet at the waterer when our temps unexpectedly dropped from the upper 60s and low 70s to a bone chilling 17 degrees below zero, in just two days! He was a broody hatched chick, and oh, how I nursed Scout over the weeks. He was brought into the house for rigorous treatment and I felt so out of my league dealing with all of his issues. It all worked, and he got around just fine on those stumps as an adult. But I’ll never do it again. The entire process was just too intense and too emotional. If there had been additional chicks in a brooder situation to worry about at the same time, I couldn’t have done it, but Scout was the only chick that hatched. I’m a nice lady, but I ain’t Clara Barton and I recognize that.
All that said, a chick with a minor cut or scrape that is easily treatable, or even pasty butt are things all of us can deal with. Go right ahead and take that little guy home, clean him up, and let him live to a ripe old age. But unless you have chick-raising experience, try to avoid letting your big heart take over when your mind is saying that this is not a good idea in cases of more serious problems. We simply can’t save them all. And your first time with all of the fun and wonder of raising these amazing birds should be a time to enjoy every minute of it with as little stress and worry as possible. By learning how best to care for healthy chicks first, you’ll be more confident if you ever are faced with a situation where you can help more. It isn’t a cruel or heartless decision....but it is a personal one and I’m certainly not telling anyone that they must walk away. I’m just pointing out that it’s often a long and difficult road to walk, and you can’t be faulted for walking on by.
It’s chick season again, and this year I’ll be joining those of you who are prepping, drooling over photos, and building your brooders and set-ups. What I’m going to say tonight is not going to make me popular, I know, but I’m sort of a Maverick in the way I see and do things. I tend to handle things by ignoring conventional wisdom and relying completely on common sense, which doesn’t always make me very popular.
There are going to be “those chicks” in the bins at feed stores. You know the ones I’m talking about...serious leg issues, blindness, crossed beaks.....those chicks. That doesn’t always mean that the hatchery or the feed store is at fault - those things can happen with chicks hatched by their moms, too. But the heartbreaking part is choosing only the healthiest chicks from the bin and leaving those weak or deformed chicks right where they are, especially if you are new to this whole chicken thing, just as she would take care of her healthy babies and ignore the weakest ones. I know! Gasp! “How can you be so cruel as to say that?”
I say it because it’s sometimes best to let the store deal with them, regardless of how inhumane that sounds. Yes, I know what the fates of those chicks are likely to be and no, I don’t like it any better than you do. I say it because taking care of a chick like that, especially if you’ve never done this before, can be overwhelming. The advice you get when you post will sometimes be so conflicting that you’ll end up more confused than before you asked your questions. “ Buy this, give him that, do this, don’t do that.” You can easily end up spending ten times more than the chick cost and still get no guarantee of improvement. But what else happens?
Well, for starters, that one chick in the corner of your brooder, the one you’re trying to save, is an inviting target for the others. They’ll often peck him until he’s bleeding, then go after those areas with a vengeance. So you figure you’ll just separate him from the rest. Then he’s unhappy, you’re unhappy, and it’s more difficult to care for chicks in two places than in one. I know too many folks who have nursed a sick chick back to health and who have said that even as adults, that one is still picked on, or is shy and doesn’t mingle with the others, or is afraid of the others and won’t even come out of the coop with them. What a miserable fate for a gregarious flock animal! A lame chick who retains that lameness into adulthood is more likely to be the first one picked off by predators. A crossbeaked chick will usually need special feedings for its entire life, and many of those never do get all of the nutrition they really need. And what’s going on with the healthy chicks while you’re focused so intently on that one? There are only so many hours in a day, you know, and your stress level is bound to increase tenfold as you work constantly to make that one chick better.
Can it be done? Of course it can. And we hear repeatedly how that one chicken became a favorite. I guess what I am saying applies more to those of you new to this entire adventure rather than those with more experience. Yes, even novices have successfully rehabbed a sick, injured, or deformed chick, but not without some serious commitment and trade offs. I know from experience. I had a chick with a serious injury. He froze his feet at the waterer when our temps unexpectedly dropped from the upper 60s and low 70s to a bone chilling 17 degrees below zero, in just two days! He was a broody hatched chick, and oh, how I nursed Scout over the weeks. He was brought into the house for rigorous treatment and I felt so out of my league dealing with all of his issues. It all worked, and he got around just fine on those stumps as an adult. But I’ll never do it again. The entire process was just too intense and too emotional. If there had been additional chicks in a brooder situation to worry about at the same time, I couldn’t have done it, but Scout was the only chick that hatched. I’m a nice lady, but I ain’t Clara Barton and I recognize that.
All that said, a chick with a minor cut or scrape that is easily treatable, or even pasty butt are things all of us can deal with. Go right ahead and take that little guy home, clean him up, and let him live to a ripe old age. But unless you have chick-raising experience, try to avoid letting your big heart take over when your mind is saying that this is not a good idea in cases of more serious problems. We simply can’t save them all. And your first time with all of the fun and wonder of raising these amazing birds should be a time to enjoy every minute of it with as little stress and worry as possible. By learning how best to care for healthy chicks first, you’ll be more confident if you ever are faced with a situation where you can help more. It isn’t a cruel or heartless decision....but it is a personal one and I’m certainly not telling anyone that they must walk away. I’m just pointing out that it’s often a long and difficult road to walk, and you can’t be faulted for walking on by.
