Chicks!

6 Olive Egger Chicks

We expanded our flock with the addition of six Olive Egger chicks! I picked them up on April 9. They were likely only a day old, and clearly adorable! They are light brown with dark brown stripes on their backs. The picture above is what they looked like in their travel box.

These Olive Eggers have a Cream Legbar father and a Welsummer mother. I think our five 2-year-old Olive Eggers are of similar or the same crosses. They are sexed and should all be female, but it is challenging to sex chickens, so fingers crossed.

I selected more Olive Eggers because I like their general calmness and hardiness. Plus they have curious attitudes and do really well free-ranging. I think they will get along with the existing flock. I also like the egg color, which can range from mint green to dark greenish brown and can have speckles.

This is our fourth generation of chicks, all raised in a cardboard box brooder in a garage. Almost ten years ago, on May 3, 2016, we brought home seven day-old chicks. The last of that generation, Billy, died last year after enjoying a very good life. We have all the chickens from the second and third generations, plus the three hens we adopted earlier this year.

For the drive, I set the travel box on a blanket on the front passenger seat and buckled it in, with hand warmers inside the blanket. The chicks were toasty, huddled to one side away from the hand warmers. They did great. They were very quiet, which meant they were calm.

Chicks are really cute and funny. You want to just sit and watch them for hours, doing a ballet leg stretch one second and conked out on the ground the next second. They also grow extremely fast. You need to carefully consider how big they will get and how long you will need to keep them contained. I recommend using the biggest cardboard box you can. Better yet, construct a big box using two large boxes, which is what I did this time.

Since the box was placed on concrete, I added several layers of folded boxes and a layer of bubble wrap under the box, all on top of a large plastic sheet. You want to keep the cold and wet away from the little feet. To start, I lined the brooder with several layers of newspaper which can easily be removed and/or added to as it gets soiled. Eventually I will add pine wood shavings.

CUUUUUTE sleepy chicks

For enrichment, I added some cardboard perches. As they grown, I will add some small wooden block perches or maybe poke holes in the box and run a narrow pole through to serve as a perch, which we have done in the past. With the last brood, I went to Goodwill and bought a basket with square sides. They can perch on the sides and also cuddle inside the basket (filled with wood shavings). I did the same for this brood; you can see the cute yellow basket I picked up in the picture below.

Chicks drinking from waterer

It is a good idea to include a thermometer. The chicks need to be very warm! We use a red heat lamp to warm them. Heat lamps can be very dangerous, so it is critical to monitor the chicks many times a day. With our second generation, we had a light shatter after only a few days in the brooder. The chicks could have died from being cut by flying glass or from freezing. Thankfully, we caught it and dealt with it in time and they all recovered. Lights can also start fires!

We check on the chicks first thing in the morning, turning on the electric lights to mimic sunlight. We replace and fill the food and water at least once a day. A few visits during the day are always fun, plus you need to monitor where the chicks are. If they are huddled right under the lamp, it needs to be lowered - they are cold! If they are far from the lamp, it needs to be raised slightly (an inch at a time). When the sun sets, we go out and check everything is good and turn off the electric lights.

In my experience, chicks immediately understand the food you provide, whether it is on a paper plate, in a little bowl, or in a commercial chick feeder. For water, you want to introduce the source soon after you place them in the brooder box. Gently pick up each chick - make sure you get them all! - and dip the beak into the waterer. They should understand and drink right away and if they do not they will get it when they see another drinking. This batch took to food and water easily. I am impressed with their spunkiness.

Now the biggest dilemma - what do we name them???