Our First Days As Chicken Tenders: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

We have made it through the first few days as chicken owners. Seeing those cute little dinosaurs happily chirping away and pecking as baby chickens like to do makes our hearts swell with love. But how exactly did we get to this place?

There are so many ways to get chickens. Every few days I find myself in the middle section of Tractor Supply watching the cute little baby chickens, ducks, and Thanksgiving dinners. After doing some research and chatting with some chicken owning friends, we decided that a hatchery was the route we wanted to take for our first go as chicken owners. We tried to plan out when we wanted them arriving based on our schedules, the theoretical future weather, and the timing of coop building. After creating all our charts and spreadsheets (not really), we threw a theoretical dart at the date of April 20. Back in February, when we first ordered our chickens, we ordered a variety of 8 female chicks and then decided a month later that we wanted a dozen and added 4 more females to our order.

As the hatch day was arriving, we set up our brooder in the garage. We are using a water trough with pine shavings. We had read that a heat plate was safer for a brooder than a heat lamp, but the hatchery suggested a heat lamp as it was warmer than a plate especially for shipped chicks. Tim built a cover out of wood and chicken wire to keep the chicks in and everyone else out. We are opting out of plastic, so we got galvanized metal feeders and waterers in which we use glass mason jars as well. By Sunday night, everything looked perfect, and we were ready for their arrival.

Monday morning arrived and we were notified that our precious cargo had hatched and shipped. I immediately went out to the garage and turned on the heat lamp. As the day progressed, I continued to check the temperature in the brooder, and it did not get past 70 degrees. We were in the middle of a frost for a few days and although the garage was warm enough for the fruit plants, it was not warm enough for the brooder. Our tracking number said the chicks wouldn’t arrive until Friday, so we turned off the heat lamp figuring it would get warmer on its own during the week and if they weren’t arriving until Friday, we might not have live chicks to worry about anyway.

Tuesday afternoon, the post office called to tell us we had a chirping delivery that needed pick up! Oh no! We had to make a quick decision about the brooder. We decided to confiscate a current unoccupied bedroom belonging to one of our sons away at college. We turned on the heat in his bedroom and Tim carried the brooder downstairs and we set it up again. This time, the brooder got to a cozy temperature quickly. Now it was time to pick up our chicks!

Tim went to our local post office to pick them up and witnessed others also picking up multiple chirping boxes. We waited until our daughter got home off the bus and then we opened our box. You can watch the unboxing video here. They were just the most adorable little chicks! We then brought them down to the brooder and dipped each one’s beak into the water and checked their bums for pasty butt.

We noticed a couple of them had pasty butt from the stress of the trip and decided to get them cleaned up. Pasty butt is a common ailment in newly hatched chicks. It can be caused by many different factors, but the basic premise is that their poop gets “pasted” to their bums and they aren’t able to eliminate and therefore it can be fatal quickly. The internet is full of suggestions on how to clean pasty butt. We opted to use a cotton swap dipped in warm water to gently clean the vents of those chicks who had it. We then dabbed some bag balm on their vents to help them eliminate smoother in the future. This seemed to work for everyone except our little Bantam Frizzle Easter Egger. She was quiet and ran around less than the other when she first arrived. We continued to keep an eye on her and noticed she kept falling over when she tried walking and preferred sleeping rather than eating and drinking. We made some electrolytes and tried dipping her beak in that. She seemed like she wanted to drink it but wasn’t sure how. Next, we took a cotton swab (obviously a clean one!) and tried feeding her some electrolytes that way. She seemed to be able to take some in but wasn’t doing it on her own. We put her back in the breeder where it was nice and warm and continued to monitor.

More time went on and we read that egg yolk might be a good thing to try as she was still not eating or drinking. I started the process of trying to give her egg yolk with the cotton swab while Tim went in search of a syringe. At one point I put her down on the ground and she immediately jumped into the bowl of egg yolk! YUCK! The poor thing! She was drenched in yolk!! I tried cleaning her off while simultaneously trying to keep her warm in the brooder. The other chicks tried taking some of the yolk off of her as well. We continued giving her yolk, water, and electrolytes. At about 10:00, 6 hours after we met her, our little Bantam Frizzle Easter Egger looked up at my eyes, took one big breath, and died in my hands.

We were all very sad, but we also knew it was going to take a lot to get her well. We went to bed that night knowing we had done all we could have.

The next day, Wednesday, our 11 remaining chicks were busy eating and drinking and having a grand time. I continued monitoring them and cleaned some more bums throughout the day. Everyone was looking good. My daughter came home from school and went downstairs to check on them. I soon heard her yell that one of them was dead. I thought surely not, it must be sleeping! I walked down to find our Cookies and Crème the kids had named “Oreo” was laying there looking like a rubber chicken. My daughter was correct, she was indeed dead. I pulled her out and monitored the brooder. It seemed warm, so I adjusted the lamp. I’m not sure the heat got her as everyone else was doing great, but I adjusted it just in case as I didn’t want fried chicken. Meyer Hatchery is amazing and they refunded us for our 2 chicks due to their 48hr livability policy. I highly recommend them for their amazing customer service all along the way!

Since then, our 10 remaining chicks are happy and doing well. We put a small seesaw and perch in the brooder with them to give them some activity besides climbing all over each other as they sleep. They are starting to grow wing feathers and they are already growing so quickly. We are curious if we are going to end up with a rooster in this group. You can plan for a girl as much as you want, but sometimes a girl turns out to be a boy once they arrive, but they are so loved either way…only time will tell.

While you enjoy our little photo shoot from this morning, it’s time for us to get back to working on that coop.