Once you get chickens, you’re officially a homesteader, right? Chickens were our first plans for raising animals. We purchased our chicks already hatched at three days old from Blain’s Farm and Fleet. There are few things as exciting as bringing home baby chicks!
Let’s dive into our setup:
To prepare for bringing the baby chicks home, my husband and I built a brood box ourselves. This is the box that the chicks live in before transitioning outside to a coop. A good rule of thumb is somewhere around a square foot of room per bird. These are fairly easy to make yourself with some plywood and power tools. A few key components to the brood box are ventilation, a heat source, food and water, and roosting space.
For ventilation, we made a lid to the box that was screen inside of a frame. We also had screen windows on the sides of the box so that we could look into it and watch the chicks. This gave the birds lots of air, but I have seen setups where people have a full lid with holes screwed into it for ventilation. This certainly would help with the dust that I will discuss later.
Our heat source was a 10 inch heat lamp that we got from Walmart. You can find these for under $10. Similarly, chick feeders and waterers are very affordable. We purchased these from Blain’s Farm and Fleet. As for roosting space, we began with just the small corner beams that you can see in the photo above. As the chickens have gotten bigger, we added in some diy rack like structures for them to sit on. All of the roosts were made with scrap wood that we already had.
The specific breeds of chickens that we got were Black Australorps and Barred Rock. At full grown, they are all black and black and white speckled respectively. These were both breeds that after researching, we felt that their temperament, hardiness, and egg production were a good fit for us.
We ended up with 15 baby chicks. I say “ended up” because we originally ordered ten unsexed chicks for pickup, but once we got to the store and saw that they had already sexed pullets for sale, we decided to buy four more females. The store also gave us an extra one somewhere in the mix. So 15 chickens. We didn’t know that you could order them already sexed, so we were planning on having to give away or get rid of the extra roosters. This is why we were okay signing up for four more hens. As it stands now, the chickens are about 7 weeks old and we believe that we have five roosters and ten hens. Our plan is to keep one rooster with the ten hens. This is a good ratio according to our research.
We have been feeding them medicated feed that you can find at any farm and feed store. This can be in place of vaccinations, but I would recommend doing research on this. After they are a week or two old, you can start giving them grit. This is essentially little rocks that they ingest and store in their stomach to assist in digestion. The grit allows the chickens to eat other foods, like our veggie scraps. Once they’ve had grit for a bit, we began giving them things like strawberries, lettuce, etc.
One other thing to note before getting chickens is that as they get older, they begin to kick dust up into the air. This is less of an issue if you plan on keeping them in your garage or another outside building. We wanted the chicks inside of the house for a few reasons, so we have been putting up with the dust. Just something to note.
All things considered, our setup was not super costly and we will be able to reuse all of it if we decide to add to the flock in the future. Although I am by no means anywhere close to a chicken expert, I wanted to share our setup and thoughts so far to show that with a little research and a trip to Farm & Fleet, some pretty awesome things are possible! It can be so easy to doubt ourselves and second guess big decisions like raising animals. If you are determined, willing to learn and put in some hard work, you can do anything.
As we prepare to bring our chickens outside, I am reflecting on the beauty of watching something grow right in front of you. Yes, I know they are just chickens. But I think generally we like to skip over all of the little details of our lives that make them truly memorable. This homestead has thus far been a journey into accepting what the everyday throws at you and learning to hold onto the little things. It’s okay to not have a perfect life or a perfect home. So while my house may be a lot dustier and a little bit smellier, I find joy every day through raising our chickens.
I plan to discuss our chicken coop build and things that we would and wouldn’t recommend after they’ve been outside for a few weeks. Enjoy some photos of our not-so-baby chicks as I write this below. Thank you again for reading!
