Are you ready to give your chicks the best start in life? We've got a lively discussion lined up for you, packed with crucial insights on the first 14 days of a chick's life. This episode is all about helping chicks build a strong foundation for a healthy future. We explore the importance of the right diet and why you should hold off on treats and mealworms. Instead, we suggest a piece of sod can provide an immune-boosting playground for your chicks. From the ideal hatching egg size to debating the best time to transition chicks from incubator to brooder, we dive into every detail that can contribute to the long-term success of your chicks.
The conversation doesn't stop there! We share valuable tips for chick care, such as the necessity of clean, warm water and the benefits of a homemade electrolyte mix. We also discuss how to prepare your brooder before the chicks arrive, and when to introduce a dust bath using peat moss as a natural medium. And let's not forget about the social aspect! We touch upon the often overlooked benefits of handling and socializing chicks. So tune in and join us on this journey, because we aren't just talking poultry; we're sharing our love for it.
Are you ready to give your chicks the best start in life? We've got a lively discussion lined up for you, packed with crucial insights on the first 14 days of a chick's life. This episode is all about helping chicks build a strong foundation for a healthy future. We explore the importance of the right diet and why you should hold off on treats and mealworms. Instead, we suggest a piece of sod can provide an immune-boosting playground for your chicks. From the ideal hatching egg size to debating the best time to transition chicks from incubator to brooder, we dive into every detail that can contribute to the long-term success of your chicks.
The conversation doesn't stop there! We share valuable tips for chick care, such as the necessity of clean, warm water and the benefits of a homemade electrolyte mix. We also discuss how to prepare your brooder before the chicks arrive, and when to introduce a dust bath using peat moss as a natural medium. And let's not forget about the social aspect! We touch upon the often overlooked benefits of handling and socializing chicks. So tune in and join us on this journey, because we aren't just talking poultry; we're sharing our love for it.
Hi there, I'm Riv Stalvin. I want to welcome you to another poultry keepers podcast. In this episode, we're going to conclude our discussion on getting chicks off to a real strong starting life. We don't want to keep you waiting, so let's pick up right where we left off last week.
Speaker 2:
So that first 14 days, that's the right time to introduce them to treats and mealworms and grains from outside and carrots and everything right. That's what's going to make their first 14 days great.
Speaker 3:
No, not at all. No, not at all. So I know it's hard to hold back on the treats and the mealworms and all that other stuff and the green grass. Their systems aren't ready for that, they're not even close to ready for that, but people are going to do it anyway.
Speaker 3:
You know that's it. You just can't. You can't stop them. They think that's the way to go. So now I have heard I have heard, and I believe this to be true that after day seven getting closer to day 14, if you go get a clean chunk of sod out of your yard with green grass and put it in there, don't clip the grass, just put a piece of sod, you know, with the dirt and the grass in there and let them start tearing that apart. That there is a lot of benefit to boosting their immune system by letting them tear apart that piece of sod.
Speaker 1:
So I can believe that to be true. I have done that. I agree. You know one thing we haven't talked about, and for those of you who raised Standard Bread Poultry, different breeds are going to perform slightly differently. But go back to what we're talking about here. Those first 14 days are so critical for your bird success, even though a large-fowl Brahma is not going to perform and grow the same as a large-fowl Roodle and Red. It's just not going to happen. But trust us, the first 14 days are very important.
Speaker 2:
Along the same lines. Craig is asking if you think it's even more important for smaller chicks from smaller eggs than it would be for, or it's just so important that it can't be more important because there's nothing more important.
Speaker 3:
I mean you can only do so much for the smaller chicks coming out of the bullet eggs. We talked about egg weights and hitting the ideal egg weights in previous episodes and it's important to weigh your eggs and pay attention to that. Just because she's a bullet doesn't mean it's going to be a smaller chick, but selecting the right size eggs instead of hatching everything, waiting until that bullet is actually laying a good weighted egg, is going to help your progeny by far. So yeah, I mean small chicks coming out of bullet eggs. We need to do everything we can to help them get that great start early on in life.
Speaker 3:
So that article out of hatchabilitycom. Just to reiterate there are certain body functions that are actually fully developed within the first 24 hours. So your circulatory and your kidney and body fluid functions. They have to be fully functioning or they should be fully functioning within the first 24 hours after hatch. I mean that's pretty important. If those aren't developed correctly and we're not treating the birds right, we're going to have issues with those birds where they're on down the road.
Speaker 2:
Can I throw up a comment? Sure, all right. So Will says that he usually leaves them in the incubator for 24 hours, once they're totally dried, and then moves them to a brooder and gives them feed and water. So he's I mean, what do you think? It's pretty common where people tell people to leave them in there for a while.
Speaker 3:
Yeah and right, and I've heard that before as well. I don't know that I would go the full 24 hours. I would try and see if it somewhere around that eight to 10 hour mark, you know. Are they drying up? Look, they're also going to dry out in a good brooder, right, if the brooder is 95 degrees and the brooder is set up correctly, there's no reason why they have to stay in the hatch or why they can't go to the brooder. The chicks still got to dry out, just like, so.
Speaker 2:
Unless you've got some sort of bedding in there that's going to cake them. Yeah, you know, what I mean Like, but we shouldn't have that anyway, yeah.
Speaker 3:
No, you shouldn't. You know, peat moss might stick to them, but it ain't going to hurt them, so it'll eventually it'll fall up. After 24 hours, it'll dry out and everything will be fine again.
Speaker 2:
So basically you just need them to be up and at least able to move, because when they first hatch and out of that shell they just lay there like wet lumps of nothing. So I mean they could get trampled easily. If the other half of the birds are running around crazy, I feel like they need to be up and able to move Right.
Speaker 3:
And how far is I mean? How long in the hatch, or is that I mean?
Speaker 2:
Rips. My gut would be like five hours at least.
Speaker 1:
You know one thing that I've observed and maybe it's just coincidental with my experiences, but the chicks that were not completely dry that I pulled and put into the brooder seemed to dry and fluff faster in the brooder than they do in the incubator, and I attributed this to there's more humidity in that incubator than there is in the brooder, so that actually helped rhyme and fluff them a little bit faster.
Speaker 2:
I agree with that.
Speaker 3:
I would think, as long as soon as they're mobile, regardless of whether they're still damp or not, as long as they can get up and move around on their own and they've got that kind of strength, I would get them into the brooders you know as quick as you can.
Speaker 1:
I was reading a and I can't I don't have to go back and see if I can find it now and to share with everybody, but I was reading a study about that that they studied actually pulling them from the incubator before they were completely dry. The waterpeak that had on them seemed to have no ill effect.
Speaker 3:
No, it just would seem weird, right? I mean just from our perspective. Not knowing any better, you would think that you'd want them to dry out, but you know I'm with you, rip. I think they're going to dry out better in the brooder than they are in the hatchery, just because of the humidity aspect that you brought up there's going to be lower humidity in that brooder.
Speaker 2:
Well, a lot of times they look wet longer than they actually are. Like you know what I mean. It's that stiffness that they get, that they have to rub against things to get all that dander off. That sort of can make them look wet even when you touch them. They're not physically wet, they just look.
Speaker 3:
They still their feathers aren't? Yeah, they just haven't swollen.
Speaker 2:
All right, did you have more, or shall we start on?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, we can start on questions. I think I've beat that horse long enough, you know.
Speaker 2:
Well, you're going to answer it with all the questions and we got some good questions.
Speaker 1:
I've been looking through here.
Speaker 3:
Good, good.
Speaker 2:
And I think that says again bantams. I actually grind the crumbles in blender for the first few weeks.
Speaker 3:
So Greg, if that makes you happy, that's fine, but you don't have to. Okay, I think some of us overthink that particle size for those chicks. Just because they're smaller, they think we think If I was going to grind them in the blender to make them smaller, I would probably actually think about adding some water to make, you know, like a wet mush, to also get them hydrated at the same time. You know, in that first feeding and that first, you know, eight to 24 hours, I would think about adding some water to it.
Speaker 1:
Let me throw a question out there. Jeff and I know a lot of folks do it regularly and believe in it. But what about feeding baby chicks eggs? Imagine that would feed them.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, hard boiled eggs is great. You know, actually, if a particular farm has had any issues with illness let's say they had a little bit of bronchitis go through or something else that they're you know they feel might be hiding in their flock somewhere, actually not cooking the egg but actually taking some eggs you know from, particularly if the birds on the ground and is able to free range at all. But taking some of those eggs and mixing it in that feed at strategic, I wouldn't do it in the first three days. I like to do it somewhere around day six or seven and then do it again day 13, 14, and then one more time out there at 20, 21.
Speaker 3:
But you're actually giving them extra imiglobbins, you know, or antibodies if you will, against the bacteria and the pathogens that live at your farm. And so you're boosting their immunity, your immune system, by giving them raw eggs and just mixing it right into their feed. You know, and one egg will inoculate easily 25 to 30 chicks, right, you can mix that in a daily dose of feed with one egg. And if you know which hens have had illnesses in the past, they're the ones to harvest the eggs from doing that. Yeah, so if you got a wrinkly egg, which means she's had a new castle or IBR or something like that, then you know that's a hen and you can actually harvest those eggs and freeze them. You can actually put those into. You know the old-fashioned ice cube trays. Some of us are old enough to know what an ice cube tray is, because-.
Speaker 2:
I still have them in the kitchen before ice makers.
Speaker 3:
And you know you can put the egg in an ice cube tray and freeze them and then you can pop them out of there, put them in a bag. You can thaw them out later, warm them up, mix them in with the chick feed. It's an excellent immune booster. Okay, so, absolutely. I just didn't figure this crowd would be willing to do it, but I've done this a lot on larger-scale commercial-type poultry. You know where I'm fighting an illness on a specific farm. I'll take you know from that rogue hen that at least seems to want to want her everywhere on the property. That's the one. I want to do it because she's gotten into everything right. She's scratched through cow dung, she's, you know, been to compost piles, she's been everywhere. She's got the best emu globbers for those chicks.
Speaker 2:
So your Mediterranean bird can't.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, If you just reinforce what I've always felt there's value in plundering oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, yeah, you know, actually a lot of farms have that rogue bannum hen that you just can't seem to catch her up and just let her run wherever. But her eggs are going to be the most perfect because they get into everything. I mean, when we had bannums at my house, I had one small black bannum hen and she would just go. You didn't know where you were going to find her right, she was in the flower bed, she was in the garden, she was in, I mean, you name it, she was there. So hers would have been the perfect eggs to inoculate or, you know, boost those chicks.
Speaker 1:
And Pregg, I will tell you that I tried that grind feed in the lender one time. It did not go well in my household.
Speaker 2:
The wife was not pleased with you, Ishii.
Speaker 1:
No.
Speaker 2:
I have a dedicated grinder. Speaking of Karen's therapy sessions, I just realized there's something that I do that I have no idea if it's necessary and sounds like a bad idea, but I actually water them first. I wait a good hour before I give them feed. After I give them water, I feel like they need to hydrate, but I think that might be back to the shipping of chicks, like what I had my very first chickens ever shipped. I think maybe that's where that came from. But there's no reason to water them first, is there?
Speaker 1:
I don't really think so, Karen, but I do it. I take them out of the incubator to the brooder and actually eat chicks, dip their beak in the water and set them down by the water and they'll drink a few. And honestly, I think the reason I do that is because the way my grandmother taught me to do it.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I'm a big dipper as well.
Speaker 2:
But you don't withhold right Like literally. I set a timer and I go back in an hour and give them a mean.
Speaker 3:
No, there's food and water available as soon as they hit the ground. I want them tripping over kernels of corn and feed, and I know we've given the recipe before. And I saw somebody asked about electrolytes. Look, you know two ounces of apple cider vinegar, couple ounces of sugar, mix that per gallon of drinking. You know, per gallon of that early water. You know, mix that up really good. It's going to work as good as any electrolyte mix that you want. You feel like you need to go a little bit further. In that gallon, put a half a teaspoon of salt, shake it up. It's a win-win, so. And you can use molasses or sugar. Now, molasses puts off an odor, so it couldn't get the birds to actually start drinking sooner. So a couple tablespoons of cooking molasses you can get it at most grocery stores A couple ounces of vinegar, half a teaspoon of salt, mix it up really well, serve it.
Speaker 3:
You know, put it all over the place for the first 24 hours.
Speaker 1:
I haven't grown to be not a fan of commercial electrolytes just because there's so much salt in most of them.
Speaker 3:
There's way too much salt in them and you know, remember that kidney and that body fluid system is developing in that first 24 hours. I don't want to damage those kidneys with salt. I want to get as much fluid in that burger than that first 24 hours. I can, same way with the feed, get those systems working, you know and but you know too much salt is a bad thing. So I'm just to make my own electrolyte, and Gatorade doesn't work that well. So people are thinking about going and buying some Gatorade. That's not the right thing to do.
Speaker 1:
So all right, One other thing about water, and then I'll show that when we can go on, Karen. But water, warm water, cool water, which is better in the brooder.
Speaker 3:
That water needs to be brooder temperature. So it needs to be within a few degrees of 95. So it should be 90 to 95 degrees. That water should have been already in that brooder for a full 24 hours before. That brooder should have been set up 24 hours before the chicks ever hatched. So I know that doesn't happen. I can't tell you how many horror stories I've heard. Oh, my chick showed up a day early by accident and my brooder wasn't set up. It's like you know I can almost I can almost predict that like 10%, 10 to 15% loss. What a brooder is not ready to go when those chicks hatch. Right, it needs to be at temperature, warmed up, ready to go, everything in place. You know, 24 hours before the chicks ever show up or hatch or wherever they're coming from, you know that brooder shouldn't be well established before the chicks ever have to get into it.
Speaker 2:
Dennis is doing the opposite of everybody else. He's screening all his feed and removing the dust and small particles, which allows only the larger uniform pieces to be fed.
Speaker 3:
We're going to see all variations of ways of doing this. But look, those chicks can handle up to the size of an oak grain or a wheatberry, or they're perfectly fine with particle size up to that. They were born with a grinder. So if we start getting that chick grid into them, which can also be just coarse sand at day three, then wearing a good chick, I prefer the granite. But if you can't get it, chick grits starting at day three, if it's mixed into the feed, day one is fine. But for people who want to put a separate panor grid in there, I would wait till day three because they don't know yet what grid is what feed is. So I need to get some energy into them.
Speaker 1:
I need to get those body systems going. Yeah, feed is definitely the most important up to that.
Speaker 2:
All right. So Alex wants to know how soon can you provide a dust bath? Then, once you do, what do you recommend? Safety is the first.
Speaker 3:
We brewed here for trail on peat moss. We noticed that day seven, day eight, we already had chicks starting to dust bath in the peat moss. So peat moss is a natural dust bathing medium anyway. It's really sterile. The birds don't eat it because it's different, it's dark in it, it doesn't look like feed. So you can start offering a dust bath at the end of the first week. They should. They're going to start thinking about it. Each breed is a little bit different. But look, we were doing a field trial with Cornish cross and if the Cornish cross has enough intelligence or instinct coming through after what they've done to that breed that they want to start dust bathing at day seven, eight, nine, then the heritage breeds or fancy breeds are going to want to start doing it. Should be doing it a few days earlier than that All right.
Speaker 2:
So this isn't it. Oh, I already missed it. My gut says mandolin, but I'm not sure. Oh, no, somebody. Anyway, I think some handling and regular observation of chicks is critical in the early days that you can gather a decent amount of information. Do you have any opinions on handling of chicks Young?
Speaker 3:
I think how can you go by the brooder and not pick some up? I mean, if you're not inspired every time you go to the brooder to pick up a chick or two, then why are you raising chickens? I mean, you're just, yeah. I mean you're the young fellow who's starting life right. Every time they get a new batch of chicks or turkey bolts, he's out there, he just lays down with them. He loves cuddling them. You know, this guy's going to be the chicken ranger of the world before long, so his name is Liam Okay.
Speaker 2:
So yeah.
Speaker 3:
And that is, that is P boss betting.
Speaker 2:
So his clothing. Just suffered for that Wow.
Speaker 3:
At his age. No matter where he goes, his clothing will suffer.
Speaker 2:
But y'all did that trial with turkeys. Right, we know turkeys really benefit from intense handling and socialization, but that's not really been true with baby chicks.
Speaker 3:
Nobody's done the trial, but I actually believe the more attention and the more socialization that you do with them, the faster they're going to grow. I can't tell you. Look, they've even measured plants, house plants. The more attention that you give a house plant and talk to it and stuff like that, it responds to it. It's a plant, okay. So you can't convince me that a chicken is not going to respond to personal attention. So you know I'd be going to the brooder every couple of hours, pick a few chicks up, make sure everybody's happy, make sure somebody's not doing something stupid like jumped inside the feed bucket and can't get out, or you know, yeah, I mean just go check on them, spend time with them.
Speaker 3:
I mean, we raise chickens for a reason, isn't it to spend time with them?
Speaker 2:
All right, I'm going to put a question up, but I have a lot more questions to figure out. So what's your advice? When you're having chicks shipped in, do you spring for the grow gel? Does that help?
Speaker 3:
I don't know that the GroGel really does help. Basically it's just plain gelatin. There's not a whole lot of nutrients in it. It's more of a hydration thing than it is. It's not food. So there's no carbohydrates, no protein. There's nothing to really. It depends on how far they're coming from A two or a three day ship. I do find that the GroGel helps keep some hydrated until they get there, which is helpful. But I'm 50-50 on GroGel. Personally, I don't know that it's a big benefit.
Speaker 1:
Jeff, I will say if we stop and think about how many millions of chicks have gone through the mail in this country before GroGel was ever invented, and they made the trip just fine. I shipped hundreds of Rhode Island ribs over the years, stopped them before GroGel was invented and I never added anything in there. The chicks made the trip just fine.
Speaker 3:
Yeah.
Speaker 2:
All right. Bill wants to know if local honey can be added to the water instead of cane sugar.
Speaker 3:
You know, I've heard both ways. In my opinion, yes, honey can be added. Molasses has a little bit more smell than the sugar does. Sugar doesn't really give the water an odor that would all attract the birds like the molasses does. So you're going to need to dip the beaks, but I don't have any problem with honey. I've had some people tell me that the honey can trigger some allergic issues if given too early. I don't know if that's true or not, bill, so I mean you can try it.
Speaker 2:
They're extrapolating human beings there. Yeah, all right, claudia, you got lots, I got a hurry. Now Is there an age that using raw eggs for that word is not beneficial? For example, she has four to five-week-old chicks. Is there any use at this point?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, there still is at this point. So, because we're doing Harriet's breeds or Fancy Breeds, I would say up to six weeks is probably your cut-off. I would be looking at doing it once a week, you know, at the end of each week, and I think there's still some. I think there's still some benefit in doing that, even once they're mature, believe it or not. If you see an illness starting in your flock, actually breaking eggs and giving it to adult birds still has some benefit. It's just not as drastic of a benefit. It's not. You know. It's a much smaller vaccination, if you will, than you know giving it to the chicks while they're developing.
Speaker 2:
Right, all right. This one wants science. Have you ever seen research about well water and added electrolytes resulting in ascites in meat chicks?
Speaker 3:
I have not.
Speaker 2:
Very specific? I have not. Sharon, if you have some out there, put the link too. Yeah, all right, along those same lines and I missed it, but is there any additional information than what we talked about? If you are raising meat birds, I mean, do they need a separate Handling, different?
Speaker 3:
They really don't and the breast is still a heritage enough breed and actually I wouldn't be surprised that Hubbard had something to do with the development of the breast breast breed out there. I would use the same guidelines that you know we outlined earlier Pretty much all chicks and even turkey polds and you know other egotics out here. The same regiment you know in that first two weeks is going to hold true. I haven't found a bird that doesn't work for.
Speaker 2:
All right, I think we answered this because you talked about this. So what size should the grit be?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I mean for a chick. You're looking at something like a sixteenth of an inch to an eighth of an inch is going to be the right size grit for a chick, and they're only going to be on chick grit for about seven to 10 days and then they're going to be big enough to go to grow a great. So they're going to want something a little bit bigger. So you don't need a lot of it. You know each chick isn't even going to eat not even a quarter of an ounce, probably somewhere around an eighth of an ounce per chick, and that's even on the high side. So you're looking at one ounce of grit for every eight birds eight to 10 birds. So it's not a lot. I mean, if you get a 50 pound bag of starter grit, it's going to last you your lifetime.
Speaker 2:
So yeah, all right, matthew. See, he's on my side with the Liam picture. My family has banned me from using peat moss. I got the basement covered in brown film Even after I mixed it with some shabers. How can you keep the dust down?
Speaker 3:
You can't, there's no way. You're going to keep the dust down. So you know you don't brood them in the house. That's the easy answer. I mean sorry, sorry, matthew, but you know, brood them in the garage, brood them in the shed somewhere. Yeah, you're not. You're not going to keep the dust down.
Speaker 3:
And you know it doesn't bother the chicks and it really doesn't bother humans, but people get all pussed up about it. They got to clean up all that brown dust everywhere. So I can relate to the brown dust. You know, when we were doing our field trial using peat moss we had brown dust everywhere and it stays for a long time. It's very hard to get it all cleaned up. So sorry, matthew, no good answer.
Speaker 2:
All right. So Marie fills a water dropper and I'm thinking with egg yolk. I fill a water dropper and squeeze drops into the water so that it makes a splash. The chicks are very attracted to the shiny droplets and encourage you to drink quickly.
Speaker 3:
Actually, birds do like moving water. So what she's doing is it can just be regular water in that, in that droplet Right. But if you ever you've done this right, you don't have to water in your chicken, right, and they're chasing it across the ground.
Speaker 1:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
For whatever reason, poultry have this affinity to moving water, right, so they'll consume more if it's moving. So, just simply, you know, marie, you know dribbling a little bit in there and they see it and the glistens catches her eye and they all come over out of curiosity, and that's a good way to get them to all start drinking, because they're going to chase those drops into the water drop.
Speaker 2:
Now we all have to buy cat waters for our brewers. Little fowl, try to get your cat to drink. Matthew says he did not like your advice of there's no solution.
Speaker 3:
I can lie to him, I mean, but it's not really my thing.
Speaker 2:
All right, so let's see. So we've got two comments. One is Laura, saying thank you for giving what we do, and then I've got another question about Laura here. I believe that it's her birthday.
Speaker 1:
So it's her birthday. I saw that on Wakebook.
Speaker 2:
Everybody say happy birthday to Laura.
Speaker 3:
Happy birthday, Laura.
Speaker 2:
He said he's taking you for a nice dinner, not just dinner, so you have to report back on what you had to eat there. Let's see, all right, I don't. Let's see, I don't. I think that's basically it. People are saying thank you, but we didn't miss anybody right.
Speaker 1:
Actually, yeah, thanks. This has been a good show and we've had a lot of viewer participation and that always helps and it all encourages everybody. Thank you for joining us this week and, before you go, make sure you subscribe to our podcast so you can receive new episodes right when they're released and they're released every Tuesday. And if you're enjoying this podcast, we'd like to ask you to drop us an email at poultrykeeperspodcast at gmailcom and share your thoughts about the show. So thank you again for joining us for this episode of the poultrykeepers podcast. We'll see you next week.