Some of my posts are “flash backs” from what we are doing now. There is some information that I wanted to cover so I am back blogging.

Now that the chicks are at their new home, we had to find a safe place to keep them.  They need to stay inside till they are over a month old.  I did not mind that they needed to be inside, it would be fun, however I was worried about how fun the cats thought it was going to be.  We needed to figure out a way to keep them safe, warm, and keep my house clean at the same time.  For a brooder, a chick house, we used a 18 gallon rubber made tote. I got it at Target for under $20.   Using a strong wire fencing, it is called hardware cloth,  on top we were able to attach it to the tote using clamps.  It was a strong enough top that the cats could sleep onto of the hardware cloth and the dogs could not get in.

Their other needs are pretty basic as well. Food, water, and heat. If given the chance chicks will drowned themselves in their water bowl, they are cute but not very smart.  To help prevent this we used the brooder feeder for water and the water can for food.  The feeder has small holes in it that prevents the chicks from being able to fall all the way in the water.  Chick feed, we got Starter/Grower feed.  A really big bag of chicken feed is like $15 at Tractor Supply.

For bedding we used shredded newspaper.  It worked and they delivered it to my door everyday! I had to clean out the newspaper every other to everyday as the chicks grew they produced more poop.

So these are the beginning basics.  There are many good books are the market to help, I would recommend Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens by Gail Damerow.  It has wonderful information about the chick stage and designing an outside coop.  Other books had good information in them, but they left me wanting more.  The Storey’s Guide answered all of my questions.

I hope this helps and I will continue to post more about are food independence journey.