Starting chicks

I see a lot of people are getting chickens to raise  right now, I know TSC has had theirs in for a few weeks now and I see a lot of questions being asked about starting them. Chicks are really pretty easy to raise when it comes right down to it, they are one of the few animals that are born with the instinct to find their own food and unless your getting chicks at day 1 from a hatchery most have already gotten a pretty good start on feeding. All the little critters really need is a warm, dry place to sleep, food and water and they'll do fine. People worry a lot about keeping them warm enough but unless your keeping them in an unheated garage or something they should easy stay warm enough to survive, they do need some extra heat but the idea that they need it to be 95degrees is a little overrated. If you keep an eye on them for the first few days put your heatlamp in one corner of their enclosure and then see where they lay, if they're laying in a pile right under the lamp then the heat should probably be raised a little by putting the lamp closer to them but if they're spread out some they're fine. Really all you want is to keep them from sleeping on a pile and risking suffocation.

The pictures here are from 30 that I got last October, the second picture is from a few days ago, that was the first nice day that they could be out on their own free ranging. I still have 20 of them, I sold the rest, these guys are doing great and right now are giving me almost a dozen eggs per day. Stay tuned for more chicken adventures.