If you haven’t already heard, we recently got a new flock of baby chicks! It’s hard not to be excited about our new brood. Just look at this cute fluff!
It’s important to us that we provide the same high quality of care for our chicks as we do for our laying hens. With proper care, they’ll grow up healthy and happy. That’s why we take extra precautions with feeding, handling, controlling their environment and diligently checking in on the chicks.
To commemorate this exciting time for us, here are some fun facts on raising chicks.
The Incubation Period is 20 Days
Whether the egg is kept under the hen or in an incubator, the incubation period is only about 20-21 days long. For eggs hatched naturally, the hen will sit on the egg and maintain a temperature of around 100 degrees Fahrenheit for the entirety of the incubation period. Hens that carry out natural hatching are called “broody” hens.
Keep Them Warm!
Chicks won’t have feathers at first to keep them warm, so it’s important to keep them in a controlled environment with the right amount of heat. For chicks, a balmy 95 degrees for the first couple weeks will keep them comfortable and healthy. After that, we reduce the temperature by 5 degrees weekly until they are a month or so older. In Montana, it is especially important to keep the chicks’ environment sealed and secured so that the cold doesn’t get to them.
Chicks Have an “Ugly Phase”
Similar to the awkward teen years for humans, our chicks will experience an “ugly phase.”
As mentioned previously, chicks are born without developed feathers. Instead, they are covered with soft fluff until they are about 8 weeks old. It is around this time that chicks will start shedding their fluff to allow for the feathers to grow fully. This transition between fluff and feathers doesn’t exactly look appealing, but we love them all the same!
Love to Run Free
These little chicks can run! While they take comfort in brooding around each other, they also enjoy stretching their legs. The love of exploration starts almost immediately and getting around quick to do so is how our chicks choose to move.
Boy or Girl?
While our flocks are females only, not many people are aware that there are specific names for female versus male chicks. Female chicks are called pullets, while male chicks are called cockerels. Often handled by commercial hatcheries, the process of determining a chick’s gender is called chick sexing. A well-trained individual usually referred to as a chicken sexer, will evaluate day-old chicks through various methods to determine the gender. For those raising their own chickens, physical differences between the genders will start to emerge around 6 weeks. Cockerels will stand a little taller than pullets and will start developing spurs on their legs.
They Grow Up So Fast…
After taking deliberate care of our chicks, our once-little pullets will be adult hens by the 20-week mark. It is near this age that we will have started preparations to move this flock into a larger barn and yard environment where they can roam inside and outside as they please. These hens will start to lay their first eggs and proudly become the new producers of Farmer Boy Eggs.
