Just one chick?

[Mandie]

My niece's class have been incubating eggs, and they will be sending a chick home with each student. Knowing I already have chickens, she asked if her chick could live with me.. and who am I to deny a six year old's pleading request.

I have raised chicks before, but I had six. Will one chick be okay in the brooder alone? I know this may sound silly.. but will the chick be lonely? Won't it be harder for it to regulate its temperature without all of its friends to pile on? Maybe I'm just worried for no reason.. it just seems strange to hand out a chick to a six year old!

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

My niece's class have been incubating eggs, and they will be sending a chick home with each student. Knowing I already have chickens, she asked if her chick could live with me.. and who am I to deny a six year old's pleading request.

I have raised chicks before, but I had six. Will one chick be okay in the brooder alone? I know this may sound silly.. but will the chick be lonely? Won't it be harder for it to regulate its temperature without all of its friends to pile on? Maybe I'm just worried for no reason.. it just seems strange to hand out a chick to a six year old!

It will probably chirp more. If your brooder has a lamp, heat should not be an issue. Put a plush stuffed animal in with it for comfort and put a mirror in so it thinks it sees another chick. Maybe pick up a chick or two at your local farm store to raise with it or check craigslist for someone selling chicks near you. Good luck.

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

And you should educate your niece's teacher that it is proper to have them go in pairs, not single. For future classroom hatchings.

 

[chiqita]

My niece's class have been incubating eggs, and they will be sending a chick home with each student. Knowing I already have chickens, she asked if her chick could live with me.. and who am I to deny a six year old's pleading request.

I have raised chicks before, but I had six. Will one chick be okay in the brooder alone? I know this may sound silly.. but will the chick be lonely? Won't it be harder for it to regulate its temperature without all of its friends to pile on? Maybe I'm just worried for no reason.. it just seems strange to hand out a chick to a six year old!

wow, sending a whole bunch of single chicks home is a bad idea. I don't know how appropriate it would be to talk to the teacher about ti, but you might try to suggest the send 2. that is a whole bunch of loud, unhappy birds every year...

 

[ChickensRDinos]

I raised one chick alone once. It did chirp a lot and I felt bad for it so I held it a lot and let it wander around with me. It fell it love with my dog and would sit in the curl of her tail. She is fine now and acts like a normal chicken and ignores the dog.

 

[Wishing4Wings]

Given how social chickens are, it seems that a single chick will not have as good a quality of life.

In addition to having a lonely chick, it will be riskier to introduce a single bird into an established flock when it is older. Two or three make less of a target.

I agree that communicating with the teacher would be a good idea.

 

[Mandie]

Well I'm glad to know i'm not crazy.. It just seems strange to send home a single chick. I will be speaking to the teacher about it!
Also as far as buying a few more chicks from craigslist, They would need to be the exact same age right? Also how long do you recommend that I keep them apart to ensure everyone is healthy?

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Well I'm glad to know i'm not crazy.. It just seems strange to send home a single chick. I will be speaking to the teacher about it!
Also as far as buying a few more chicks from craigslist, They would need to be the exact same age right? Also how long do you recommend that I keep them apart to ensure everyone is healthy?

Within a couple of weeks should be ok. I have 6 pullets and 2 of them are 2 weeks younger than the rest. And as chick you probably wont need to quaranteen them, just put them on medicated feed.

 

[donrae]

I've raised chicks up to 3 weeks apart together with no problems.

This teacher needs some serious education. She's looking at two dozen dead chicks, easy. Sorry, it kind of torques me that so many classrooms use chicks as "projects" and don't think of the fallout. Think what an uproar there would be if they bred cats or dogs each year and handed out a kitten or a puppy. Same darn thing in my opinion, except more folks seem able to keep a mammal alive than a baby bird.

 

[Nichol]

We had a bad hatch in July, and we only got one chick to successfully hatch. We put her in a brooder box with a stuffed animal. She was so cute and came through it just fine. She's 7 weeks now and she follows us around the yard. We plan on trying again to give her some friends, but for right now she seems okay with just our loving.

Some other people have suggested filling a sock with rice and heating it up.