[GerryOB]

Hi everyone 

We have decided that we don't want to go down the hatching route, and had initially decided to go for POL hens.  However, we went to have a look at some today, and saw some just over 2 week old chicks  for sale.  They were not under heat lamps or anything, although were indoors in the sales area of the place we visited.

So..I have a couple of questions:
1.  How young can you buy chicks without the need for heat lamps/incubators etc

2.  What is the care for such young chicks?  The ones we saw today were just over two weeks old.  When would they be old enough to go outside into the coop and stay there?

3.  I have a large hamster cage with small mesh (for the tiny russian hamsters), would that be ok to keep 4 chicks in for a week or two before moving them onto an indoor guinea pig cage (with larger mesh), or do I just move them into the coup?

4.  What sort of material should I put on the floor of the cage while they are so young ?  Is it chopped up straw and wood shavings?  What about when they go in the coup?  Same thing or something else?

5.  Finally....All the chicks we saw today were RIR/LS.  We really would like our four chickens to be different so we can tell them apart.  Prefer same size birds, not small, and good egg layers.  Coop we have bought holds up to 8 but we only want 4.  Will they all get on together if they have not been in the same run/place before?  I know they establish their pecking order, just curious if they have any kind of 'inter chuck discrimination' if we mix the breeds.  Not having a cockerel, so hopefully they will be pre-sexed too.

Many thanks and sorry for all the questions.

Kind regards
Gerry


Any help would be very much appreciated.

[joyfull]

you would be better going down the point of lay route.
the chicks cannot go out at that age, they need to be in a brooder on chick crumb and water. I have only used broody hens to raise so hopefully someon will answer the other stuff.

[GrannieAnnie]

Hi Gerry, chicks will usually come away from the heat lamps between 4 and 6 weeks old depending on the weather conditions.  Same with putting them into a coop.  I tend to keep mine indoors for 5-6 weeks as you may get a cold snap even in the summer.  But mine do have sheds to give them space.  Occasionally mine have even been in the sheds longer if I'm waiting for one of the big houses to be vacated, but that's another matter! 

How large is a large hamster cage?  Remember it will have to be big enough to take a feeder and drinker as well as letting the chicks move around freely.

We use wood shavings, but some of the chopped straw like medi bed is treated with something to prevent mould spores forming.  ordinary straw can harbour spores that can cause respiratory diseases like aspergillosis.  Same when they go into the coop.  But I know some people use straw in the nest boxes.  Never use hay as the chicks can eat it and have more problems.

If you want them pre-sexed, you are better off with hybrids or auto-sexing breeds like Cream Legbars or Welsummers, and ideally, if you can get them all from the same breeder or rearer, then they will be used to each other from the beginning.

And don't buy them from places like garden centres where they are over-priced and the staff rarely know much about chickens!

And stay away from the cheap chines built coops that say they will take 8 chickens.  I think Chinese chickens must be the size of quail!  A chap we know in our village brought one of these coops.  I told him not to get the cheap and nasty ones from Ebay, so he went to the local garden centre, paid another £100 and it was the same thing!  2 months later, the roof leaks and neither of the doors will shut properly!

[GerryOB]

Many thanks for the responses.  We thought it was odd yesterday to see two week old chicks ready and available for sale.  No heat lamps or anything over them.  Still, they do this large scale and we are the newbies so far be it from me to be critical when I don't know as much as they do.

Hamster cage idea out of the window as I can see your point, may be useful for transporting youngsters in but not keeping them in even for a short while.

The coop we have bought is not the cheap ebay version.  UK built with onduline roof and larger than the 'average' 6ft long ones that seem to be taking ebay by storm just now (they are about 6ft, ours is 9ft as I liked the idea of more space for when they are 'couped up').  The coop itself is going to be under cover in any case, but with plenty of fresh air circulating, so that we won't be put off going outside to tend them and let them out or put them away even in bad weather.

Totally agree about steering clear of buying from garden centres, which we have noticed tend to charge twice what local breeders charge, and only have one or two of each, and no indication of how old they are either.