New and nervous!!!

Lots of food and clean water. Put them in a large tote or soemthing that is fire resistant to put a heat lamp over. Put wood shaving in the bottom. They will get these in the food and water, so I usually clean it twice a day. They need to be at about 95 degrees the first week and down 5 degrees each week after until they are 4-5 weeks with feathers, After a week they get wing feathers, and some are good enough to fly, at least well enough to get out, and get scared, if you hear loud peeping someone is in distress, and go find out what happened, usually a lost one they get big quick, and start getting more feathers, but make sure they have some room to move around wherever you put them- do you have a set up? After a month, put them in a large pen or coop. They should have about all their feathers I have had good luck and its my first year, i only had one die but he was acting that way when she got here. What hatchery? What kinds

 

Good food, clean water, clean brooder (and later coop) lots of love and they should stay healthy. You can't keep them 100% safe all the time (wild birds can bring disease sometimes) but you can do everything possible to try to prevent it. Good luck with your chicks! BTW, I have only had chickens for about a year and have only lost one to a predator. No sickness yet (keeping and knocking on wood)

 

You will love your little Australorps! We originally got 2 silver laced wyandottes, 2 buff orpingtons, and 2 new hampshire reds. One of the Wyandotte chicks died when it was 4 days old. We then got two little australorps and they are by far our friendliest little chicks. We then picked up two little Easter Eggers two weeks ago. Our chicks are about five weeks old now. My advice to you is to read, read, read. Ask all the questions you can. Search the forums on this website. I take the magazine backyard poultry and it has been immensely helpful. You can read some of their past articles if you go to their website. Get yourself a book about chickens, I bought Storey's guide to raising chickens. Make sure you have your brooder set up before they arrive. Start them out on paper towels for the first few days then put them on pine shavings. You will love them!

 

I got my 8 chicks (they were one day old), two years ago. I kept them in a dryer box (from Home Depot) in our garage. I placed the remote part of an indoor outdoor thermometer in the bottom of the box on the crushed corn cob I used for bedding to keep track of the temperature. I hung a heat lamp (one with the red bulb) over the box and regulated the temp to 95 degrees before I brought them home to be sure it was just right for them. I made little roosts for them using 2 x 4 sections of wood in an "I" shape. When I first took from the box I picked them up in, I was told to make sure they drank when I got them home. As I moved them from the carrier box to their dryer box I gently put the beak in the water and then released them gently onto the crushed corn cob. This way they new where the water was (that is what I was told to do at the Blue Seal store where I ordered them from). The crushed corn cob was easy to keep clean, I used a slotted spoon and scooped up their poo with that. Make sure their food and water is always clean. And pick them up on occasion to get them use to you. I had my eating out of my hand in a very short time.

 

Check out all the threads on feeding, watering, care and all the other things. There is alot of great info on here and if you have questions just ask!!! Good luck with your babies!!