Spring is for Baby Chicks – Raising Backyard Chickens

As we felt the first warm days of Spring, it was time for our annual tradition of getting new baby chicks.  Who couldn’t resist those cute, fluffy little peepers?  In their first weeks, they are the cutest, but also the most fragile. Raising live animals is always a big responsibility, and you need to especially supervise your kids at all times when they handle these babies. 

We have been raising chickens in our backyard for several years now. These quirky girls are so much fun to observe. It is a great experience for the kids to learn to take care of them and where their food comes from. Once you get used to eating farm fresh eggs, there is no going back to the tasteless grocery store eggs.

 Free-Ranging and gardening

Our chickens have their own dedicated area in the backyard, but these lucky girls get to occasionally roam free and scratch and peck their hearts out in our fenced backyard. Sometimes free roaming chickens can be a gardener’s worst enemy. They are sure to peck every grass seed you put on your yard and unroot all those tender little plants and flowers with their strong legs.  And for some reason, they really like to use your patio as their bathroom. But free ranging has its benefits too. Chickens are really efficient at eating harmful bugs, and especially ticks. We have hardly seen any ticks on our kids since we got the chickens.

Circle of life

Nature takes its course, and even though we had made our chicken coop predator proof, we always lose a few chickens a year from either old age or predators. The average lifespan for chickens is 8-10 years, but I would be surprised to see any of our girls live that long. The older chickens lay fewer eggs and especially during cold and dark winter months they stop laying for months at a time. But that is not a good enough reason to get rid of them. We love our old mellow ladies equally, even if they are not laying many eggs.

During the night, chickens are safe inside the coop. We have made our chicken coop predator proof, with electronic doors and hardware wired all around. However, during the day time, there are always sneaky foxes and hawks who prey on these girls.  

Raising Baby Chicks

Baby chicks need a safe and warm environment to grow. For the first couple of months, the chicks live in our garage confined in a large plastic tub and heated with a heat lamp. They grow extremely fast. Feels like every week they almost double their size. In the second week of their life, they already have little wings and tail feathers.  Once they are fully feathered, we gradually introduce them to the outside world and our grownup chickens.

Chickens have a pecking order amongst them, and that defines who gets to eat first and who gets the best place on a roosting bar. Some chicken breeds are more aggressive and bossier than others. We tend to pick gentle and more docile breeds like Buff Orphingtons and Australops. Introducing the younger chicks to the rest of the flock should be done gradually and slowly. Our Rhode Island Reds are especially aggressive towards the younger ones, so we like to keep the young ones in a separate chicken coop and run to protect them. And once the baby chicks are bigger and can defend themselves better, we slowly merge the two flocks.  

How about Winters?

In the winter, our chickens still live outside, even though sometimes we have below freezing temperatures for weeks at the time. Their coop is not heated. Instead, the girls gradually develop more feathers, and on the coldest days, they huddle together inside the coop. Their water bowl is heated, so they always have water available. Giving them cracked corn and sunflower seeds helps them to keep warm. And chickens don’t like snow on their feet. If we get lots of snow, we tend to shovel a little path for them to stretch out their legs.  

Chicken ownership and Town codes

In New York state you have to buy a minimum of 6 baby chicks at a time. They set the limit to make sure that people don’t buy one or two chicks just for the Easter decorations and then dump them afterward. However, each town has its own rules on how many chickens you can own and where can you keep the chicken coop. For example, the town of Cortlandt allows a maximum of four small animals on smaller lots. And in Peekskill, you need to get a permit for a chicken coop from the building department.  Quite often the number of chickens is based on the size of your lot and area zoning. Also, many towns don’t allow roosters in residential areas due to their habit of crowing at the break of dawn. So, before you start your own backyard chicken operations, make sure you check the town code and get the necessary permits.