BEFORE your chicks are due to hatch, you should set up a brooder. This is the hatchlings’ nursery area. Major components that you will need is a way to confine the chicks to a small area (brooder), brooder flooring, heat lamp(s) and thermometer, waterer(s), feed and feeder(s) and a lot of TLC.

BROODER: Your newly hatched babies will need to be kept away from drafts and dangers such as pets, rats, snakes, stray cats/dogs and other like dangers. The brooder area could be a large plastic tote, 20 gallon aquarium, hooded cat litter box (new, of course!) for very small broods, a hard plastic child’s wading pool, or a custom-made circle of chicken wire. Some people use cardboard boxes, they will work but only for 1 day and must be disposed of after that and replaced - it is very labor-intensive and you should always have some sort of water-barrier under the box, such as a trash bag or shower curtain. You also must be very cautious as another element you need for hatchlings is a heat lamp - a heat lamp too close to a cardboard box can be a recipe for disaster and can cause a deadly fire!

Keep in mind what type of birds your are brooding when selecting a brooder: button quail are very tiny and can squiggle out of almost anything. Quail and pheasants start to flutter at less than 1 week and a top is needed to protect them and prevent their escape from your safe zone for them.

Brooder floor: We highly recommend the rubbery shelf-liner (the kind with holes in it) for positive-grip footing for the babies, it can be thrown away or washed up and disinfected for reuse - your preference. We do NOT recommend wood chips of any kind or newspaper, as newspaper ink is poisonous and newspaper causes foot problems. Cedar shavings are poisonous to birds! Paper towels may be used, I have heard many people swear by using an old bath towel in the brooder floor although I personally wouldn’t want to launder it.

Heat Lamp(s)/Thermometer: You will want to keep the brooder area a steady temperature of 95-100 degrees F for the 1st week of your hatchlings’ lives, and lessen the temperature by 5 degrees every week until they are at room temperature. Keep in mind that a heat lamp by night may be necessary for a longer period of time if the area they are in is subject to temperature drops overnight. You can vary the temperature by changing the wattage of the bulb or by making the light higher or lower. A thermometer is essential to making sure that your chicks stay warm enough, but not too warm. Remember to check the cord on your heat lamp - retire a lamp with a worn cord. Make sure that the heat lamp cannot fall or slip and touch the floor of the brooder or sides of a cardboard box, or you could be headed for disaster. Two heat lamps (with smaller wattage bulbs) may be a better option, so if a bulb burns out, your chicks won’t get too cold. Extra heat lamp bulbs in varying wattages are an essential to keeping your chicks safe and cozy.

IMPORTANT WARNING: Never use a bulb more than 60 watts if your socket base is PLASTIC, or a fire could occur because those type of sockets are electrically unsafe for higher wattage bulbs!

Your heat lamp should be placed so that the chicks can warm under it if they are cold, and they can get out from under it should they become to warm. How to tell? If the birds are huddled in a clump under the light, they are too cold. If they are huddled in the corners of the brooder, they are too hot. Also look for signs of the birds panting when they are too warm.

WATER: Water is another essential element for the brooder area, as it is the most important commodity your birds need for life! Baby chicks will sometimes pile in a waterer, use one specifically for chicks. For every chick except button quail, we like to use the red plastic bases for a quart waterer, designed as quail chick waterers by Little Giant. If floor space is an issue or you are using a wire brooder, you may prefer a pop-bottle waterer base. For young hatchlings, you can use marbles in the base for the pop bottle waterer or for other larger styles of chick waterers. Make sure the birds have fresh, clean water available at ALL times, it should be lukewarm, never cold or straight from the tap as it can chill the babies. Disinfect your waterer each time you refill it, we prefer TekTrol as disinfectant, far better than Bleach or Lysol and at a fraction of the cost. (Valley Vet carries this product at the best price we’ve seen.) Also a note, avoid placing the water right beneath the heat lamp or in a corner. Water plus heat equals bacteria growth. Birds will pile in corners, and if they pile in water, the results can be heartbreaking and disasterous.

FEED: Feed and feeders are another vital aspect of chick care. For the first day or two, I prefer to scatter feed on the floor of the brooder to make it easiest for the birds to find. Don’t pile too much though, the birds can injure their legs trying to run through a heap of feed. Commercially available chick feeders can be used after a few days, or when the birds are tall enough to eat from them and not so small that they can crawl inside of them and become trapped. Again, make sure that your feeders and all other equipment is disinfected regularly!!

Choosing the RIGHT feed: do not use medicated feed; if you pump the birds full of antibiotics you can create strains of mega-disease that will be antibiotic resistant, you can lose all your birds rapidly when this happens! The higher the protein you can find in a non-medicated starter crumble, the better - especially if you are raising turkeys, Jersey Giants or other large breeds of chickens, Giant quail of any type, or other birds where you specifically want them to grow to their maximum size potential. Check out our auctions for chick starter feed if you cannot find reasonable feed locally.

Remember that you should NEVER eat or offer for sale any meat from birds who have been medicated or eating eggs from birds that have been medicated. Read the schedule on your antibiotic or feed bag for more information as to how long those chemicals take to get out of your birds. Also another last note, antibiotics in your feed for breeders DOES lessen fertility....not everyone knows this, but it is very important.

TLC - Yes, good old-fashioned tender loving care. Your chicks should be checked on a minimum of twice a day, especially during the first week or two. Three-four times a day is better. Make sure that your birds always have access to fresh, clean water; fresh, clean food; and check to see that the birds are comfortable temeprature-wise.

TROUBLESHOOTING: Do not overcrowd your birds. They can become more disease-prone, not grow within reasonable time frames, become irritable and turn to cannibalism, etc. Our standard brooders are 24x30 and for the 1st week, we put no more than 50 quail, 40 pheasant or guinea, 30 chicken or 20 turkey in each brooder. On day 8, they get divided by twos, to have 25 quail, 20 pheasant or guinea, 15 chicken or 10 turkeys and accordingly they get split into smaller groups or get larger areas as they grow!

WHEN IN DOUBT, DISINFECT!! Whenever possible, disinfect everything! Wash your own hands before/after handling your babies (or incubator), disinfect all of your equipment at least once a week, before and after each use, and whenever it appears dirty in between.

If you DO need an antibiotic....we recommend Sulmet for coccidiosis in baby chicks, it is easy to measure and use (only mix up what you will use within 24 hours, double your disinfecting schedule....) and keep some on hand BEFORE you see any problems so that you can catch it in time!

May you always be able to count your chicks before they hatch.

Guide courtesy of c-m-r-otter, Cinda’s Blue Jersey Giants and CBF Super Quail.