BROODING GUIDE

RAISE HEALTHY CHICKS TO ADULTHOOD BY MASTERING THE ART OF BROODING.

- EMILY LANE & RODRIGO GALLARDO

Raising chicks can be rewarding, fun and sometimes just plain confusing. What temperature should their habitat be? Why aren't they eating the chick food but instead seem to find shavings the tastiest thing possible? Is it normal to lose one chick? What about five? Brooding, done correctly, can be a wonderful experience, and it can be a great alternative to buying adult birds.

WHAT IS BROODING?

Technically, brooding is defined as the period from hatching until supplemental heat is no longer needed. For most people, this means the time that the chicks need to be kept inside or with a heat lamp, which is generally somewhere between three to eight weeks. The smaller and slower-growing the breed is, the longer it will need the support of brooding.

This is a critical time for your chicks. They’re growing rapidly; they can’t handle most outdoor environments because they don’t regulate temperature as adult chickens do; and they’re at their most vulnerable for disease. Brooding is also when incorrect incubation or poor parent stock is most obvious; sickly chicks are more difficult to raise and require more extensive management.

Luckily, there are a few ways that brooding can be explained to make sense of it all. Many of these categories are the same for adult-bird management, but instead of a one-size-fits-all mentality, you will have to alter and change the environment and the rules as your birds grow.

There are eight different things chicken keepers need to remember when they are brooding any kind of bird, be it chickens, turkeys or quail:

light

temperature

ventilation

humidity

bedding

feed

water

mortality

Here, we'll list the numbers specifically for chickens; different values should be used with other species.

LIGHT & TEMPERATURE