New baby chicks

[Tomi witt]

Hi all! I will be getting 3 baby chicks within the next 3 weeks. Will I be able to raise my chicks in the garage, screened in porch or spare bedroom ? Is one of the 3 places better? I the equipment to raise the chicks until they are able to live outside.
Thank you!

 

[cmom]

I would suggest whatever works best for you. Good luck and have fun...

 

[sylviethecochin]

It really depends on your weather, but I'd go with the screened porch or the garage (chicks smell.) When they start to get feathers, there'll be dander in the area. If you've got any sort of hay fever/allergies, you'll want that out of the house. Besides, the dander tends to give a light coating (depending on number of chicks) to everything in the vicinity.

Welcome to BYC.

EDT: accidentally hit the "tab" key and posted before I meant to.

 

[DobieLover]

Hi all! I will be getting 3 baby chicks within the next 3 weeks. Will I be able to raise my chicks in the garage, screened in porch or spare bedroom ? Is one of the 3 places better? I the equipment to raise the chicks until they are able to live outside.
Thank you!

Hello and welcome to BYC!
Do you have your coop/run already built? If you do, my strong preference is to brood right in the coop with a brooder plate. I raised my most recent brood that way. They arrived during the last week of April. When they were less than a week old, they were ripping and tearing around in their brooder on a 28F morning. They absolutely thrived in all their extra space, fresh air and just the brooder plate with a towel over it for their heat source.
I also recommend fashioning a "baby bottle" that you can hang from a chain for easily raising it's height as the chicks grow. The water never gets fouled and keeps the brooder nice and dry.

 

[Mvan42]

Hello and welcome to BYC!
Do you have your coop/run already built? If you do, my strong preference is to brood right in the coop with a brooder plate. I raised my most recent brood that way. They arrived during the last week of April. When they were less than a week old, they were ripping and tearing around in their brooder on a 28F morning. They absolutely thrived in all their extra space, fresh air and just the brooder plate with a towel over it for their heat source.
I also recommend fashioning a "baby bottle" that you can hang from a chain for easily raising it's height as the chicks grow. The water never gets fouled and keeps the brooder nice and dry.
View attachment 1859013 View attachment 1859014

That bottle is a real good idea. I need to do this.

 

[DobieLover]

That bottle is a real good idea. I need to do this.

I continue to use this bottle and a duplicate I made. I have one in my broody breaker crate and this one in the brooder with a new momma and her little clutch of 3 chicks. They are also nice when you want to offer electrolyte water (for heat and cold stress management) and fresh water at the same time but don't want to put electrolytes in your main water supply.
Regardless of these additional uses, it will forever be known as the baby bottle.

 

[cmom]

Do you have something to brood your chicks in? I realize you are only getting 3 chicks. There is a light bulb in the bottom of this homemade incubator/hatcher/brooder for heat. There are a lot of options and everyone is different and has a way that works best for them. It's probably hot enough during the day where they won't need supplemental heat but at night when the temperatures go down they may.

 

[chookchick]

I like to keep them in the house for the first week (a chickquarium), then transition to a larger brooder in the garage or shed. But like DobieLover said, if you can raise them in the coop with the others that would be ideal.

 

[Tomi witt]

Thank you all for the advice!! I have 2 grown chickens. I did have 4 ducks and 2 more chicks but I lost them to a fox that hopped over our fence I have an enclosed safe coup. This is my first time raising small chicks. I happy to be apart of BYC

I did enjoy free ranging my birds. But they can’t do that until we some how fox proof our back yard. Any of you all have fox issues? Will live out in country suburbs.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I've raised chicks indoors (in a spare bathroom) and outdoors, directly in the run, once I got things set up for it. I never want to brood indoors again due to dander and also outdoor brooding makes integrating easier when you have existing birds. Here's a link to my brooder/integration article: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/short-on-time-recycle-a-prefab-brooder.73985/

If you can't safely brood inside the coop or run due to space, lack of equipment, etc then I'd aim for as close to outside as possible. So maybe the screened porch you mentioned would work.