Have any of you ever raised baby chicks in the summertime? We had wanted to add to our layer flock, but I figured that to do so in the heat would be very difficult, and hard on the chicks. I'm hoping I'm wrong...have any of you done it, and if so, how did you handle the babies in the heat?
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Myron, thanks for the great presentation yesterday. My wife and I are ready to buy some chicks, but want to know how long they will have to be kept in a box before putting outside in a pen?
Myron, with chicks, should the water be that deep, or perhaps just 2 inches or so? I'd be rinsing it out and replacing it daily when I do their food and water anyway.
Uncontained trash is coming up for our area soon, so perhaps I'll see an appropriate basin there, or on Craigslist frees.
I do believe I used to bathe my son in the type of baby bath you described! Now that he's 17, I think he could fit one foot in there.
Oh, my. I've kind of offered to adopt some baby chicks. It's just the thing I've been waiting for. so, any advice on enhancing their comfort frugally is welcome!
Myron, I appreciate your advice very much. I'll stick with layers and forego the meat chickens until "fall." We have a nice shady area on the east side of our property, which has vegetation on our neighbor's side to the east, and clover (yay!) and Bermuda grass (boooo...) that is located right to the west of where the tractor would be. The tractor woudl be shaded all morning by the combination of our east side neighbor's trees, and several trees overhead where it would be. I would need only to reposition it during the aftenoon when the sun sears in from the west, or fabricate shade some other way for times I would not be here. Could burlap on the west side of the tractor (or brooder, which would be a dog crate) suffice to preclude the summer afternoon sun-torching, if I wet it down?
I check my current girls' water at daily or twice daily right now. Oh, and I check Patrick the rooster's water too of course...he's been relegated to a chicken tractor outside the hen barn/yard/gardens, with no conjugal visits allowed. Poor Patrick, but he was hard on the 10 hens, and he kept attacking my mom, who still says she's going to stew him. But, I digress. The small swimming pool - do you mean the plastic things, not inflatable, about 6 feet in diameter? How deep should the water be - don't chickens drown more easily than sparrows and the like?
Re: the heat before A/C - my stepmom was born and raised here. Remembers sleeping on the porch - not so much concrete-heat then. They lived "way out in the country" near McDowell for awhile. The old folk told of wetting down all of their undergarments every day in the summer to keep cool.
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Uncontained trash is coming up for our area soon, so perhaps I'll see an appropriate basin there, or on Craigslist frees.
I do believe I used to bathe my son in the type of baby bath you described! Now that he's 17, I think he could fit one foot in there.
I check my current girls' water at daily or twice daily right now. Oh, and I check Patrick the rooster's water too of course...he's been relegated to a chicken tractor outside the hen barn/yard/gardens, with no conjugal visits allowed. Poor Patrick, but he was hard on the 10 hens, and he kept attacking my mom, who still says she's going to stew him. But, I digress. The small swimming pool - do you mean the plastic things, not inflatable, about 6 feet in diameter? How deep should the water be - don't chickens drown more easily than sparrows and the like?
Re: the heat before A/C - my stepmom was born and raised here. Remembers sleeping on the porch - not so much concrete-heat then. They lived "way out in the country" near McDowell for awhile. The old folk told of wetting down all of their undergarments every day in the summer to keep cool.