Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
THE DAY BEFORE
Set up your brooder the night before your chicks arrive. Use a thermometer to make
sure the temperature stayed steady overnight. Fill and spill a water fount to make sure it
won't create any standing water, and be sure you have a good supply of chick feed and
chick grit on hand.
The first day with your chicks will be a hectic blessing but certainly not an unmanage-
able one. There will be a flurry of activity as you welcome the kids into their new home,
but they'll be a calm pile of fluff before you know it. If you did your homework - and
your preparations - you're golden.
WhenIstoppedatthefeedstore
after work today I heard that wonderful sound of day-
old chicks chirping in the back room. I bolted to the front desk to ask if there were any
extras for sale (the hatchery sends a few extras in case any get lost in the mail). They
had only two: a Rhode Island Red pullet and a Black Silkie bantam.
Now, I hadn't been around Silkie chicks since Idaho, and instantly those feelings of
getting my first-ever laying hens flushed into me like an injection of warm nostalgia. I
missed Diana and felt like I was once again in her basement during a March snowstorm
getting my first order of birds. And good lord, I'd forgotten how small they were. I paid
the nice people $3.60 for the little babe and took it home (along with the orphan Red).