>>WAYNE MARTIN: If you’re thinking about
raising chickens, you need to prepare a space
for them and have it ready to go upon their
arrival.
[pause]
And I’ve got a couple of batches of chicks
that have already arrived; they’re over
in the pen right next to us. But first of
all what we’re going to do is show you how
to set up a pen in preparation for their arrival.
So first of all you need to have it clean,
you need to have bedding: peat moss or pine
shavings, or rice holes. Any of those work
really well. I would recommend that you do
not use paper because paper gets wet and greasy
and slippery and the chicks can fall on it.
And if their legs get spraddled, that is a
condition that they won’t recover from.
You should have at least, for 50-100 chicks,
you should have at least two one-gallon containers
and it’s about half-full that you can see
right now. This needs to be changed a couple
of times a day because it does get dirty.
You need to have feeders, enough feeder space
to make the chicks be comfortable while they
eat. Here’s a feeder full of prepared feed
and it’s about 20-22% protein.
Another thing you need to do in preparing
the space is to have heat lamps. The chicks
will need about 95 degrees of supplemental
heat at their ground level. You’ll want
to have a thermometer as well to make sure
you are getting that temperature close to
95 degrees for that first week of their life.
You’ll also need to make sure that space
is protected from predators. And what I’ve
done is put chicken wire all the way around
it and tied it on very tightly and that way
it will keep the predators out and keep the
chicks in, healthy and happy.
