Chicken Starter Guide playlist.
Want to raise your own backyard chickens? Here’s a beginner’s guide to bringing up baby, from purchasing baby chickens to keeping a happy coop.
As well as chick starter feed and clean water, they need a draft-free brooder pen with a red brooder lamp on at all times. This keeps the temperature at 92°F at 2 inches above the floor.
When the chicks have feathered out, reduce the temperature by 5°F per week until they are 6 weeks old, then switch their feed from chick starter to grower mash. Young chicks need to be close to water and food at all times.
What do you need to raise baby chicks?
If home temperatures range around 75 degrees, you won’t need a heat lamp past week four. But in barns or garages, which may run 60 degrees, chicks need supplementary heat until they are fully feathered at six weeks of age.
Chicks aren’t able to regulate their own body temperature, so they need a heat lamp to provide them with warmth. Don’t place it in the middle of the brooder though as they like to run in and out of the heat to either warm up or cool down.
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