Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[Tatters]

Quote:
Well~ the first silkies I bought many years ago (5) ~ all of them died except one. He couldn't walk right. And he was very non dominant and got picked on all the time. He sat in a chair and ate popcorn at night when I was on the computer. Of course I was on BYC and there were other people who had house chickens and.....etcetera....... I bought him a diaper. His name was Hoppy. He died this summer.

[URL]https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/5531_picturesjan2011_203.jpg[/URL]
Thats a condensed version.

I'm sorry to hear you lost your chicken

...I have A LOT to learn about chickens

though I flat out refuse to do diapers

 

[Tatters]

Quote:
not sure, but have to admit we do keep chicks in the house for about 2 weeks just to make sure they are doing well once they hatch

and they move out to our garage until they are big enough to go into the coop.

Isn't that what the coop is for though? When hens lay eggs, they hatch and then the hen looks after the chick, right? Mind you, I have no chicken books yet...hoping to have a few come Christmas, so I am doing this all blindly. If you heat your coop, wouldn't the chicks be fine?

 

[tiki244]

I think I would prefer to keep them outside. It makes life easier.

 

[tiki244]

When the hens raise the chicks they grow up healthy. The hen, I think, has some immunity that she passes on to her chicks in her poop.

But when the chicks are incubated artificially they dont get that extra boost and, I believe, or so I have been told, the chicks should remain seperate from the adults until they reach the age of 5-6 months when they have a mature immune system.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Quote:
not sure, but have to admit we do keep chicks in the house for about 2 weeks just to make sure they are doing well once they hatch

and they move out to our garage until they are big enough to go into the coop.

Isn't that what the coop is for though? When hens lay eggs, they hatch and then the hen looks after the chick, right? Mind you, I have no chicken books yet...hoping to have a few come Christmas, so I am doing this all blindly. If you heat your coop, wouldn't the chicks be fine?

Well that would be a fine way to raise chicks but the breeds we raise don't go broody so they will lay eggs but not sit on them to hatch. My kids are in 4-H and involved in the poultry project so we have an incubator and we hatch the chicks out but inorder for them to have a good sized chicken to compete with at fair we end up hatching chicks starting in Jan. By keeping them inside the house for a couple of weeks the kids handle them daily, make sure everyone is drinking, eating and pooping, wipe any poopy butts and so forth. We also have found that the chicks become use to us and are more friendly compared to the ones we raised outside from day one. The bigger and older chickens tend to pick on the babies as they weren't raised together and the chicks would be lowest on the pecking order. Our coop is insulated but not totally heated, we do use heat lamps as needed but try and be very careful with this as not to cause a fire. Our garage is heated and so we use it

This is what seems to work for us and of course we end up vacuuming alot to keep the dust down.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Quote:
I have not heard of this, I know that when raising turkeys it is recommended to keep them off the dirt for the first 3 months or so and to keep them away from chickens to prevent blackhead which chickens carry and it can kill turkeys. I know people that raise turkeys right with their chickens and have no problems.

 

[Tatters]

Wouldn't it be wise then to have chickens that go broody? I mean this would then be a natural way for the chicks to be with their mother and not have to rely on outside interference to hatch and be separated from the rest?

 

[Hens and Roos]

Quote:
sure, but alot of the breeds have had broodiness breed out of them and even if the hen hatches chicks it dosen't mean that she will be a good mother to them, you would also need to provide an area for her and the chicks to help protect them from others in the flock. We did have cochins for awhile and they were so broody that they hardly laid eggs so that didn't help DS(9) with his project and he had a hard time getting any new chicks to keep his line going.

 

[Tatters]

So how do you determine what breed will go broody if the broodiness has been bred from them and why would anyone want to breed that out of the chicken since its a natural process to begin with.

 

[tiki244]

Thats a good question and there is a good answer to it. A long one. ...... I am a looking .....