Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (79 page)

Spread her wings to cover the chicks

Tidbit — sound the food call and pick up and drop bits of food

Rush to the assistance of a chick making sounds of distress, such as if you pick it up

Cluck loudly and continuously

Under normal conditions a hen and her brood make initial contact through sound rather than sight, so a foster broody is more likely to accept chicks slipped under her at night and have the entire night to listen to them peep. Hopefully by morning both parties will have developed an amiable relationship through sound, even if the chicks might look like little aliens to the hen.

Since a hen can successfully mother as many as three times the number of chicks she hatches, you might wish to artificially incubate additional eggs, with the intent of having your hen brood the resulting chicks along with her own. This ploy works best if all the chicks hatch at the same time. Again, slip the freshly hatched incubated chicks under the hen at night when she’s sleeping. If you’re moving the hen and her brood from the nesting site to a brooding pen, place all the chicks in the pen first so they’ll get mixed together before you introduce the hen.

A mechanical brooder replaces a brooding hen as a place where chicks are temporarily raised until they have enough feathers to keep themselves warm. A brooder should provide:

Adequate space

Protection from predators

Protection from moisture

A reliable heat source

Freedom from drafts

Good ventilation

Brooders come in many sizes and styles. The style that’s best for you will depend on how often you plan to raise chicks, how many you wish to brood at once, and how much money you want to spend. Ready-made brooders are available in many sizes from small plastic ones that hold a dozen or so chicks to large metal ones that hold hundreds. Or you can make your own of any size or style that suits your needs.

Whatever style you choose, locate your brooder where you won’t be bothered by the dust chicks invariably stir up with their constant activity. Brooding chicks in the living room does not sit well with the person who cleans the house.

A typical commercially available
box brooder
is made of metal or metal and plastic. It has a built-in heat source and a low-level light to attract chicks to the heated area. A wire-mesh floor has a removable tray beneath it to catch waste. Built-in feed and water troughs are attached to the outside along three sides to furnish plenty of feeding and drinking space while keeping the chicks from fouling the feed or water.

A barred gate, adjustable as the chicks grow, protects each trough from droppings and prevents chicks from popping through and drowning or falling to the floor. For bantams the bars start out closer together than for larger chicks. For all chicks you have to watch the adjustment of the gates to make sure the birds haven’t grown so big they can no longer reach through to eat or drink.

A
battery brooder
consists of a series of box brooders stacked one on top of the other. The removable droppings trays prevent waste from one tier from falling on chicks in the tier below. This style of brooder is what you typically see at a traditional farm store, where batteries are favored because they house lots of chicks in a small space, and the tiers offer a convenient way to separate birds of different breeds, species, and ages.

Some batteries have a rack that holds a specific number of tiers; others come as individual units that may be stacked as high as you can reach. Each level has its own heater, which allows you to save electricity by turning off the heat of an unoccupied tier.