One thing that you may or may not have thought about before acquiring your “baby chicks” is the breed. Unlike popular culture might suggest there are in fact a wide variety of “chicken.” Not all of them look like a little red hen, and none wear aprons.They come in all sorts of sizes, shapes, health problems, genetic defects and temperaments. A good rule to follow is that the pickier you are about how pure-bred your chicken is, the more likely you are to encounter some sort of creative health problem at some point in the chicken’s rather short life.
Be warned.
Common sturdy “farm” breeds include Barred Plymoth Rock, Rhode Island Red, White Leghorn, Star Red, Orpington, Golden Sex-link, Hamburg and Black Sex-Link. If you went into a feed store, somewhere in the rough vicinity of whatever city you live in and randomly selected a handful of “baby chicks” the odds that you have at least one of the above breeds is pretty good. They are cheap, plentiful, lay boring colored eggs, and have just enough “mutt” in them as a matter of rule to keep genetic defects resulting in slow and painful death at arms length.
However, if you did just drive out to the local feed store and buy a random assortment of “baby chicks” from the bin you may have also gotten some “whoever got lucky with whatevers” i.e. Farmer Joe’s batch of eggs from his flock of mismatched mutt-birds in the back. They may or may not have been properly sexed, but they will probably lay a lot of eggs and live a long time. Given that they are not male. In which case they will both lay a decidedly smaller number of eggs, and live a decidedly shorter amount of time.
There is also the very good possibility that you got really excited about having chickens and spent hours poring over photos on the internet, and decided that since you can only have 4 or so per city regulations, you might as well have four “pretty birds.” In this case you may have selected something like an araucana, americauna, any number of fluffy bantam varieties, a polish or cornish hen, any one of the variety of “game birds” (good luck with that one!), verwork, sizzle, sultan, yokohama, russian orloff, sumatra, frizzle or silkie.
Some of these breeds work out relatively well, araucanas and americauna’s lay lovely blue/green or green pastel eggs. About once every 4-5 days. If having chickens is not something you want to do to help feed the family that’s fine. Otherwise they are generally sturdy birds who are shy, quiet and surprisingly nasty when other birds come down with disease or weakness, and depending on the degree of purism, sultans, verworks and russian orloff’s can make wonderful backyard birds.
Silkies, Frizzles and sizzles are an entirely different story. All bred to have unusual feather patterns these birds come with a whole slew of common health problems probably also caused by the genetic narrowing that allowed for their gorgeous and difficult to keep clean plumage. Silkies look like the have fur, frizzles have feathers that curl backwards, and sizzles have feathers that just plain curl----sometimes to the point of corkscrews. These birds are all really fun to look at, and have won a fair number of farm kids blue ribbons in the 4H division at the county and state fairs. They are not great egg layers, and due to their unusual fluffy rufflage they can require actual grooming in order to keep clean enough to stay healthy. They are also unlikely to even be able to fly the 10 or 15 squawking feet that most chickens can fly if something scary happens.
As far as I can tell this makes them no more or less catchable by predators such as neighborhood dogs and foxes, but easily identifiable when you discover the piles of bloody feathers left as remains of some exciting meal had by some neighborhood canine or kitty.
For the purposes of this simple guide let’s assume that you’ve chosen one of the more manageable breeds. Lets fill the flock with two star reds, a rhode island red, a barred plymoth rock, an araucana blend (not purebred!) and a transylvanian naked neck for good measure and creativity. Your little “baby chicks” have been pre-sexed and the only fatality to date was one little barred plymoth rock that woke up dead one morning about a week into the whole “having chickens” process.
Congratulations. You’ve got a good survival rate, have been feeding them properly, making sure that their bedding is changed and letting your kids play with them, because even though it’s added stress on the birds now, if you don’t get them accustomed to being handled while they are young it will never happen. If you let a bird hit the 8 week mark without handling it you will never be able to catch that chicken. It would, and will, rather die first.
You see, while your bird will never regard you with the warm and trusting eyes of friendship that you may have grown accustomed to with some of your mammalian pets, this does not mean that your bird will necessarily run in screeching fear every time it sees you. A sort of guarded trust---similar to the guarded trust between the USA and the USSR between 1949 and 1991--can be developed between you and your birds. You can enjoy close proximity, even a sort of “frenemy” vibe that hides the tension that your chicken(s) will ALWAYS be feeling below the surface. In order to accomplish this you need to start out young, before the “baby chicks” develop enough confidence to run away.
The more time you and/or your offspring spend handling the “baby chicks” the more brainwashed the birds will be as they age to consider human contact one of the necessary evils of life in your miniature “urban farm.” This contact will make life much easier later when you are dealing with health problems, feeding, finding hidden eggs or having a row with one of the perkier hens over the human acquisition of those hidden eggs.
The process of hand raising your “baby chicks” can be fun, pockets can be lined with handkerchiefs (the birds will deposit turds EVERYWHERE) and “baby chicks” can, with much are, be carted almost anywhere in your house and yard. Do be aware as you and your offspring are carting about and caring for the “baby chicks” that these tiny innocent chirping things can carry with them their entire lives several nasty strains of Salmonella.
If you are not familiar with salmonella thank whatever deities you consider holy. A mild case can knock you out for a weekend, emptying your digestive tract (from both ends) of all contents, and resulting in severe dehydration, fever, muscle cramps and general miserableness. In people with existing health conditions, or just people who contract a particularly bad strain, it can be fatal. Giving your family, friends and neighbors a story capable of shutting everyone else up at a cocktail party and turning them into minor social outcasts.
I would not recommend contracting or dying of Salmonella. In hopes of preventing this, and continuing to handle and work with your “baby chicks” I would ensure that the “baby chicks” are never near food, or food preparation and that all clothes and hands that come in contact with “baby chicks” are cleaned thoroughly as soon as the “baby chicks” are deposited back into their little habitats. This rule applies to Growed-up birds as well. It’s exactly the same reason that your grandma never let you lick your fingers after basting the Thanksgiving Turkey when you were young, dumb and inclined to do such things.
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