My sister brought home 7 baby chicks yesterday. They all are around 2 weeks old and they are very adorable! (5 yellow ones, 1 black, and 1 mixed). Anyways we put them in a cardboard box with a heating lamp close enough to them, a bowl of water, and some chick food (My sister watches them like a hawk). They haven't learned to fly yet (or glide/soar or whatever they do) but I may need to get a cage soon just in case. Anyways, my questions are:
1) Is there any household products I can feed them other than the bird food?
2) When should I actually go out and get the cage? (When do they learn to "fly"?)
3) When can I tell which ones are going to the roosters and which are going to be hens?
4) What can I let them have as a toy or accessory to their environment?
5) Is there anything else I can do to lead them to a better life?
Thanks!
These chickens will be fully feathered hens by around 10 weeks of age and way before then they will need to be in a large outside run, preferably on grass with a coop/shed to live in at night with perches and nest boxes. The pen and coop need to be predator proof.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
Depending on how cold it is where you live they probably won't need the heat lamp for long at this age, make sure they don't over heat if they are as far away from the lamp as possible then move it higher.
Domestic chickens do not soar or glide lol, they don't "fly" really at all other than to fly up onto their perch at night and maybe over the fence of their pen if its less than 6ft high.
Its hard to sex them before 10 weeks of age, depends on the breed but usually roosters have thicker legs, longer curved over tail feathers, more developed comb (although some hens have large combs) and will start crowing obviously.
Chickens don't need toys, they are not like parrots. You can feed them oats or wheat as well as layers food when they are older but they should be on chick crumb until around 10 weeks of age. They love household scraps when they are older such as crumbled brown bread, salad leaves, boiled (cooled) potato/carrot/parsnip peelings, apples, pears, bananas, left over pasta/rice that sort of thing.
pets question and answers,www.5d2d.com
Why not try sourcing some information online, there are many good websites dedicated to keeping chickens try using Google and type "keeping chickens"
Its a big responsibility, someone has to let them out every morning, feed them give them fresh water (crack the ice in the winter) and shut them away at dusk, this might not be until 11pm in the summer months. You can't go out for the night without arranging for someone reliable to do this for you.
