Raising chicks: Week 3

If you purchased chicks at our Chick Days event, your chicks should be three weeks old now.

Temp: 80 degrees - to make it cooler in your brooder, raise the lights. If you find that your chicks are all gathered under the light, they are too cold. If they avoid the light, they are too hot. Adjust based on their behavior.

Feed: Start & Grow Medicated or Non-Medicated

This week: Chicks are trying to fly

Watch out, your chicks may escape! This week they will be starting to jump and trying to fly. Make sure that there are high sides on your brooder so they cannot escape.

Escapee Solution: Chicken wire We have a few chickens left from Chick Days and ours are growing like yours are. They are trying to go explore the world, so we have placed some chicken-wire atop their brooder. It has helped to keep them all contained. They may not be able to jump to the edge of the brooder, but they can jump to a water bottle, then to the edge. And some are even trying to fly. What have you done to keep yours safe?

Featured product: Rooster Booster Pick-No-More

You've heard the term "pecking order," right? Well here's where it comes from: chicks are determining the pecking order or their ranking in the brood, so they start pecking at one another. Once a chick is bleeding, all the other chicks see red and start attacking it. This product helps with that. It covers up the wound and paints it a greyish-purple color. That stops the instinctual pecking, then the tea tree oil and aloe vera help heal the wounds. It has a safe, food grade ingredient that tastes gross to the chicks and repels the offending birds. $7.99 for 4 oz.