The Suburban Chicken by Kristina Mercedes Urquhart

Author:Kristina Mercedes Urquhart [Urquhart, Kristins Mercedes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CompanionHouse Books
Published: 2015-11-10T05:00:00+00:00

Wire egg baskets are sturdy and easily found at antique stores, online, or through homesteading supply catalogs.

Chick Equipment

If you plan on raising your flock from chicks, you’ll need a few additional items.

Brooders. Think of the brooder as a mini-coop or “crib”: It’s a soft, safe place for young chicks to grow. A brooder provides safety and security and mostly keeps them contained. Brooders are not meant to stand alone outside or weather the elements like a coop, but rather, a brooder provides a contained area for the chicks to remain warm and grow in the safety of a larger shelter, such as a barn, shed, big coop, garage, or basement. As mentioned earlier, you don’t need to purchase a commercial brooder for rearing chicks: A kiddie pool, bathtub, or even a cardboard box will suffice, as long as it keeps the peeps contained and safe and it is placed in an area free from drafts.

Heating Lamps, Bulbs, and Thermometers. The best method to heat a brooder is by using a poultry heat lamp with a 250-watt bulb. Even the new models sold today are rather simplistic. A heat lamp turns on by plugging it in, and it has only one setting: on. To turn it off, simply unplug it. Coupled with an infrared 250-watt heat bulb and suspended above the brooder (either hung or clipped), a single brooder lamp will warm small clutches of chicks nicely. When shopping for a heat lamp, you may notice styles with and without a guard on the brooder: Always purchase one with a guard. Should the lamp fall into the brooder, the bulb will be protected from breakage and prevent the lamp from coming into contact with the bedding, which could be a potential fire hazard. Some poultry supply catalogs also sell lamp stands for just this purpose.

Your lamp will hold many different bulbs, but the best bulb to buy is one designed for producing heat for poultry. Poultry supply catalogs will likely give you options between red and white bulbs: Always buy the red. White bulbs produce harsh light that doesn’t give the chicks a chance to rest, inevitably leading to cannibalism and general stress. Red bulbs soften the light, allowing the birds to go about their business in peace. Remember, the lamp will be on 24/7 for up to a month to provide warmth—that’s a long time in the life of a chick.

Finally, invest in a chick-safe thermometer. Brooder temperatures can’t be left to chance or “feel.” It’s best to have a concrete number of the brooder temperature at various times of day. Thankfully, poultry thermometers are very inexpensive and are easy to find among chick-rearing supplies.

Hatching Equipment

When you’ve been keeping chickens a while and you’re ready to hatch your own, you have two options: Allow a broody hen to sit on a clutch of eggs, hatch them, and raise the chicks for you, or you can hatch them in an incubator.

An incubator is an artificial mother hen. It is a piece

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