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Is this your first time raising chickens or need a refresher for your new batch of chicks? Here is everything you need to know for their first 6 months of life, from chicks to laying hens. Be sure to check out our previous post specific to prepping for chicks and then sign up for free at helpinghomestead.com to find a sitter for your birds when you travel!

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Chick Care - The Basics

Your new chicks will need to live in a temperature controlled brooder for their first 6 weeks. They need a heat source and chick-appropriate access to food and water at all times. Click here to read up on everything you’ll need to buy for your brooder. 

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Do you want to be able to handle your chickens when they get older? Make sure you spend time holding the chicks every day so they are used to this. I highly recommend this if you partially free range. If you let your chickens out for part of the day but need to put them back in a run for any reason before dark, you’ll have a much easier time wrangling them if they aren’t afraid of you!

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What to Feed your Chicks

Yes - chicks require a different food than older birds. You may want to consider medicated food if they aren’t vaccinated. They also have chick-sized grit which is important to introduce around 2 weeks of age. Depending on the amount of chicks you have, don’t buy too much so that you aren’t leftover with it once they outgrow it. 

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Transitioning Chickens to the Coop

Once it is time to introduce your chicks to the coop, there are a few things to consider:

Is it an appropriate temperature outside?

• Once your chicks are fully feathered, they should be able to regulate their temperature. However, introducing them to a full day and night in the coop when temps are below freezing could be too harsh for them to start with. If temps are cooler, I recommend letting them have a few hours at a time outside and increase this every day. Once they are up to a full day, you could still bring them in at night for a few days to help them acclimate. 

Do you have an existing flock in your coop?

Introducing new birds to your flock must be done carefully to avoid bullying. Here are the steps we took which worked great for all of our birds:

• During the day, keep the birds separated but close enough to see/smell each other. We picked up two new chickens using a dog crate, then put it next to the coop. Make sure the separated birds have their own food and water source on this first day. 
• Let the new hens explore the coop while the other hens are free ranging. I highly recommend this if it’s possible for you. The new hens were able to discover their food,  water, and shelter without being pestered by our existing chickens.
• Free-range exposure: We then let the chickens all free range in the yard together. Our existing chickens observed them and non-violently (thankfully) showed them the pecking order. Since the newer hens kept to themselves and were happy enough just to avoid conflict, the other chickens seemed more tolerant of them.
• Most importantly: Keep your hens separated when contained until dusk/nightfall the first night. Once your flock goes in for the night, they are in sleep mode. They will care a lot less about sharing a small space with strangers when they are tired. Because of this, the perfect time to join all your hens in the coop together is at night. We waited until our existing flock had gone in for the night, closed them up, and then opened our coop-access door and quickly tucked the new hens in and locked it up. Do I know what happened in there that night? No. Was anyone bloody or missing feathers in the morning? No! They did great.
• Be patient. Your chickens still won’t be best friends for awhile. Keep an eye out for signs of bullying and separate if needed, but don’t worry if they assert signs of dominance.  If you don’t free range every day, I would recommend trying to do so daily in the first week. Our new hens liked to wait for the other chickens to leave the run before they would eat for the first couple days. After about two weeks, you would never know they all didn’t grow up together! They get along well and enjoy exploring our yard as a group. 

Is your coop appropriately prepped?

• Chickens have different needs at different stages of their growth. If your birds are still growing by the time you transition them to the coop, make sure they can still access/reach their food and water.
• Click here to check out our previous post on raising chicks for detailed instructions on how to transition your chicks to the coop successfully. 

• Nesting Boxes: As long as you don’t have older hens in your coop, your chicks won’t need nesting boxes until they are about 17 weeks old. Here’s how we partitioned ours off for the first few months to save us some steps during cleaning:
• Bedding: There are a lot of materials, techniques, and opinions on bedding for your run and coop. Based on cost effectiveness, preventing trauma to the chickens, and extending time between cleanings without the coop starting to smell, here is what we use:
  
  • Horse Bedding: this is cheap and so tightly packed that one bag lasts us a pretty long while. It’s pretty easy to both spread out and clean back out, and composts well.
  • Barn Lime: We aslo sprinkle this around the coop and run with a little extra by the water and food source to help prevent moisture. This prevents flies and reduces odor, and I’ve been shocked by how well it works for us. I clean our run once a month and usually it’s because I feel like I need to, not because it’s starting to smell or anything like that.

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• Dust Bath: make sure you include one of these in your coop. We use a plastic basin and fill it with ash. It’s helps the chickens stay cool, clean, and mite free, and the bits of charcoal are good for their immune systems. Plus, we can make it ourselves. 
• Feed: Go ahead and finish up that bag of chick food until it’s gone. Once your birds get close to laying age, I would highly recommend finding a local source for layer feed. I have heard endless reports from people who notice a night and day difference in egg production and quality when using this type of feed, especially when it’s locally and naturally produced vs. buying from a commercial feed store. 
  
  • Don’t forget the grit - keep in mind they have different sizes for age.
  • Supplementing - I try to keep it simple with this. We regularly do ground oyster shells and red pepper flakes. Otherwise, I keep pots of fresh dill, rosemary, thyme, and sage next to their run for them to snack on. I also love to give them fresh (not moldy) scraps from fruits and veggies, sprouted lentils, and frozen melon rinds in the summer. 

Once your hens are laying age, your routine shouldn’t change too much. Keep an eye on your birds for signs of illness, injury, or bullying. If you have all the same breed, try to keep track of egg laying habits too. Diversifying was our way of making it easy to tell whose egg is whose! All that’s left now is to keep your birds happy, healthy, and to enjoy them! We got them for eggs but I can’t tell you how much joy I get from watching them in the yard. Don’t forget to check our other blog posts for chick care, local laws on chickens, and to find or become a farm sitter at helpinghomestead.com.