There's a reason spring is known for chicks and baby rabbits! This time of year we have babies everywhere, from rabbits and chicks, to lambs and soon, puppies, Now is the time to buy your chicks if you're so inclined. Most feed stores will have them for the next few months; you can also order chicks directly from a hatchery. We don't normally buy chicks as we prefer to have our mama hens sit, hatch, and raise up a clutch. However, in recent years we haven't had many hens go broody (more on this below) plus we lost a number of hens to predators and old age this year.
A couple of weeks ago I headed to our local feed store, first thing in the morning, to get in line to buy chicks from their weekly delivery. We could buy chicks from a hatchery and have them sent to us directly though that usually requires ordering more chicks than we want; we could also buy pullets from locals, but pullets cost quite a bit more - understandably as they're older and are also guaranteed female. Instead I decided to try my luck in the first come, first served line.
As number 18 out of 21 in line, I wasn't sure I'd get any chicks, much less the breeds I wanted, but luckily I was looking for different characteristics than the other folks in line. Many of them went for the Easter Eggers (lay blue-green eggs) or the Copper Marans (lay dark brown/copper eggs). While I like a pretty egg, my main goal was to buy breeds that would go broody and who would raise up chicks on their own in the coming years.
Of the breeds the feed store had in that week I chose the Speckled Sussex and the Welsummer. The Speckled Sussex are native to England and are an excellent homestead bird, decent egg producers, good meat, and adept foragers. Welsummers are naturally curious birds that enjoy exploring their surroundings. They are active foragers, spending their time scratching the ground in search of insects, seeds, and other treats. (I also bought 2 Blue Andalusian because they looked pretty.) Besides being known for being good foragers/free-range birds they have a higher-than-average chance to go broody.
Going broody is when a hen decides she's ready to sit on and hatch a nest of eggs. Many modern chicken breeds have had the instinct to go broody bred out of them because when they start sitting on a clutch of eggs they stop laying, so for people who raise chickens for their eggs, a broody hen reduces their production. In addition, if the flock doesn't have a rooster a broody hen is sitting on unfertilized eggs which will never hatch. On the other hand, because we prefer our hens to raise up their own chicks, we seek out breeds likely to go broody and, when they do, we set them up in their own space to encourage them to hatch up their clutch.
We've kept our chicks inside for the first couple of weeks to make sure they have a solid start with plenty of food and water and stay warm enough. Today we moved them out to an enclosed coop in our chicken area - this will allow them to start acclimating to the outside temperatures and weather as well as provide a slow safe introduction to the rest of the flock.
Buying chicks to raise ourselves is definitely more work than when we have a mama hen do the job. Mother Hen is a term for a reason, hens do an excellent job of not just caring for the chicks' needs for warmth and food, but she will also protect her chicks against dangers and introduce them to the rest of the flock in such a way they are not picked on. I'm looking forward to watching these chicks develop and, hopefully, provide the foundation for our homestead flock for years to come.
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