260 Raising Chicks and Hens

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by SmartPots, the original lightweight long-lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit smartpots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's smartpots.com slash Fred. ♪ Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, well, you've come to the right spot. ♪ Easter egg season is here and many of you may be thinking, why bother painting those eggs? After all, there are breeds of hens that lay beautifully colored eggs. So let's just go get some baby chicks, raise the hands, and gather up those colorful eggs. And we're going to save money on omelets too. Oh, wait a minute here. Now it's true, many feed and farm supply stores around the country now have those baby chicks in stock. So today we're going to back up a step or two and talk about what you should have on hand before you buy those baby chicks. We talk with an urban chicken consultant. Yes, there really is such a thing. And a certified poultry inspector about how to have a successful experience raising backyard chickens. You're going to learn how to pick a chick that isn't a rooster. That's kind of important in a neighborhood. What are the best breeds of chickens to have around small children? What do you feed a baby chick? And why you don't want to use pine shavings or newspaper as the flooring for your baby chicks. And maybe why you should only offer warm water for those baby chicks to drink. Plus we have precautions on using heat lamps around your chickens. It's all in today's episode 260, Raising Backyard Chicks and Hands. We're podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful of Utilon, jungle in suburban purgatory. It's the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcast brought to you today by SmartPots and Dave Wilson Nursery. Let's go. ♪♪♪ Well Easter is just around the corner. You might be thinking of adding maybe a chicken, a hen to your family because really I don't know why Easter rabbit stone lay eggs. We all know that. But for some reason people want to get chicks and that's fine. But do you know what to do with them? Probably the last thing you should do is buy a chick because first of all what you should be doing is buying everything you need to raise chickens. And we're talking with a chicken expert. Shari sent us Glover is an urban chicken consultant. Yes, that's a real thing. She runs the website chickensforeggs.com. She is a poultry enthusiast, a certified poultry inspector for various fairs and shows. She's raised a variety of chickens for fresh eggs for show and of course for the dinner table. And she specializes in helping new and future chicken owners and can help you with your coop options, chicken rearing, health issues, feeding and a lot more. Shari always good to talk with you. Why do people buy chicks now? I think they buy chicks now because there's a lot available. Like this is the best time because they have such a variety to choose from and it's kind of addicting, right? Like you go to the feed store and you're really planning on buying something else and then you hear the little cheaps and you wander over to the to the breeder that the feed store has set up and you take a look and you go, gosh, you're so cute. And I think people just get captured by these cute little fuzzy fluffy things. They start thinking about egg prices right now and what they can do to maybe kind of help ease that. Maybe this will be a fun project to have and gosh, you know, I've always wanted the cute chickens. And next thing you know, they take home a little container, a little cardboard box that has baby chicks in it. And as tempting now that is, we always, you know, at least I always ask people to kind of really take a sit back and think about, okay, what do I need to do? To do to get ready for these baby chicks. What do they need? Because you are their mom at hand, right? For those first three months, people forget that chickens, chickens actually can live to be 10 years old. So it's definitely an investment. It's always good to get some education under your belt first before you kind of take that big dive. There is a very good article in the New York Times. And don't we always all turn to the New York Times for advice on rural living? I don't know why they have it, but it's in their newsletter Wirecutter. And they go through all the basics of raising chickens. How many you should have the coops that they need, their health requirements, the varieties of chickens, and a lot more. So I would suggest that if you do get the New York Times, especially for your rural living advice, check out their Wirecutter newsletter article called the best chicken coop and accessories of 2023. A lot of interesting advice. Sherri, I know you read that very thorough article, and I know that you were impressed by their sources of information, a few of which were from the UC Davis School of Veterinary Science. I was really glad to see that because there's a lot of misinformation online. And you just, you know, Fred, it's funny to think about back when I first started chicken keeping. We're talking, this was like 25 years ago. My grandparents had chickens and I was raised with chickens, and so I always wanted some of my own. You know, by the time I saw was about three, I was like, okay, we're going to get some chickens of our own. And there was nothing out there, like the internet wasn't there, right? There wasn't, you know, websites and Facebook and all these, you know, YouTube, right? Nobody knew about YouTube. That that didn't exist. And at the time, there was something called, it was actually called the poultry information exchange, or, or I guess it was IE 5. It was the only thing you could find online. That was where I learned a lot of, you know, the basics about keeping chickens. And it's so funny because nowadays you can find information on chickens all over the place, right? So even the New York Times will talk about chickens. It's interesting because it's not, to me, it doesn't feel as complicated to have chickens, but there are some basic things you want to be familiar with. And what I loved about that article was they actually involved some of the avian scientists that are at UC Davis, which is great because at the end of the day, you want to make educated decisions, right? Whether you're buying a new puppy or whether you're keeping back your chickens, you want to make educated decisions and being able to recognize so much of that misinformation out there. You know, no, some things might be frilly and pretty and look pretty shiny. It's really getting down to the nitty gritty of what science is behind the things that we do with our chickens, especially when it comes to health issues and health concerns. I was just happy to see that the author of that article had reached out to UC Davis because we're so, we are so lucky here in the Central Valley to have them so close. Way back when, before there was the internet, there were these things called books. I don't know if you kids remember that or not. But one reference that they recommend in this Wirecutter article is the Stories Guide to Raising Chickens, which sounds like a great title for a book, especially before you buy some young chicks. And I think in the past, you've mentioned this book. I have, that is one of my all time favorite books about chicken raising because the author, she actually has a series of different books for different livestock. She has a lot of good and reliable, accurate information about chicken keeping, which is fantastic. Definitely one to put on the book list. Another one, believe it or not, you know, which is kind of surprising, but there's the, you know, the chickens for Demis, which, you know, they have that whole Demis series, but it's a great book. It's packed full of good information. And there's also a chicken health handbook also by Gail and who writes the story series, the guides. And then another one of my all time favorite books is called City Chicks. And that one talks about not only urban chicken keeping, but also urban gardening. So it's, that's definitely one of my go-tos, especially, especially if you live in an area of the United States that maybe hasn't really taken into account. It's a great book to kind of derive information and statistics and details to help convince your city council that you can have backyard chickens, especially if you're in an urban environment. So maybe before you buy that chick, you check out Stories Guide to Raising Chickens. It's by Gail Damarau. Find out more and exactly what you need. And of course, this Wirecutter article from the New York Times about entitled, The Best Chicken Coop and Accessories. I check that out too. Alright, let's get into the nitty gritty of this. I would still think that you would be recommending that before people buy chicks that they have certain items back at the house. Yeah, so, oh, good question, Fred. Number one is you want to be able to realize that you have different stages of chicken, chicken ages and sizes, right? So that means having a breeder that you can change over time as the chicks get big, what that might look like. And what I've actually found to be, you know, the, maybe the best and easiest breeder is actually those clear plastic bins that you can get from one of those big box stores. And you want the ones that are clear so you can see through it, you know, from across the room if needed. It's pretty simple. You basically, you start out with a smaller one and you graduate up to a larger one because if you already have chickens at home, for instance, and you're bringing in maybe a new fresh supply of lain hens and their chicks, you're not going to be able to introduce those new chicks or chickens to the existing flock. And tell they are about the same size. Chickens are very relative, right? So size is important. They're going to be more accepting of chickens that are about the same size they are, which is kind of funny, but it's true. With baby chicks and you're starting out basic equipment, you're going to need a heat source, right? Some kind of heat lamp, something to maintain that temperature because when they're two, three to yo chicks, they really do prefer around 95 degrees. And then gradually it's going to decrease a couple of degrees each week after that. But it also depends on the weather, depends on what our temperatures are. So you need a heat source. You're going to need some kind of breeder, which again, I recommend the clear big plastic bins. And you're going to have maybe two or three different sizes as you go along. And you're going to need to cover that. And I found that the easiest thing to do was to use a roll of window screen. So you can get it at the hardware store and you can cut it to whatever size you need. You know, there were extra rolls that they have in the back. And it works wonderfully because it not only allows for air and the heat to kind of penetrate, you can have the heat lamp close to it without causing an issue. You can clamp it down. And that screen cover on top, it has two purposes. One is to keep things out. So for instance, if you happen to have a cat at home or something that might be very curious about those baby chicks, you can, it helps to kind of, you know, keep them out. But also it keeps the chicks in. And people are surprised at how often sometimes chicks can jump. How high they could jump. So that, you know, you basically get some clamps, you clamp on the window screen to the bin and you're all set. The other thing you're going to need is feed and water as well as bedding. So for bedding, what I recommend the first few weeks is actually using just a roll of paper towels. Sometimes people will try to use, you know, shavings, that kind of thing. But young chicks can get that confused with the feed. And you definitely don't want them filling up their digestive system with, you know, pine sheavings. Paper towels work really great. They're absorbent. You can change them out pretty easily. And it also allows you to very clearly see what their droppings look like, which can be important when they're, you know, baby chicks. And so I just find that that's the easiest thing. Another quick tip would be people have found those puppy pads that you can get, right, for your, when you're training a puppy. They, those can actually be pretty absorbent and be helpful, like in the bottom of the breeder. So flat surface, non-slick, in the past, a lot of people would use newspaper. And what they found was newspaper was too slick and it would actually cause leg injuries with the chicks. So stay away from newspaper, stay away from pine shavings until they're a little bit older, and just go with something easy the first few weeks. Feed wise, you're going to want to get a chick starter and you have an option of medicated or non-medicated. I've always gone with the medicated, which basically helps prevent coccidiosis, which is something that can affect baby chicks, especially around the four to six week age period. So medicated chick feed, it's also usually a higher protein level, which is good. Then water, your water, whenever you give water to your brand new baby chicks, you want it to be warm, right? You don't want it to be hot water, but it should be warm, lukewarm, not cold. And you want to add something called electrolytes and poultry electrolytes. You can pretty much find them at any feed store or any pet store these days. And they're kind of like chicken Gatorade. So they add in, you add that into the water pretty easily, that helps give them some extra nutrients when they're starting out so young. Then you just watch. You've heard me talk about the benefits of SmartPots, the original award-winning food. SmartPots are sold around the world and are proudly made 100% right here in the USA. SmartPots is the oldest and still the best of all the fabric plant containers that you might find. Many of the imitators are selling cheaply made fabric pots that fall apart quickly. Not SmartPots. There are satisfied SmartPot owners who have been using the same SmartPots for over a decade, actually approaching 20 years. When you choose SmartPot fabric containers, you know you'll be having a superior growing experience with the best product on the market. 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SmartPots, the original award-winning fabric planter. Go to smartpots.com slash Fred. Tell me about the watering device to allow these baby chicks to drink water without making a mess. Oh, that's always the plight of the chicken keeper is how to get these baby chicks not to make a mess because they definitely can get messy. With the water, you definitely want to go with a chickwater if you can. And then the goal is to elevate it based on the height of the chick, which I know sounds probably a little bit tricky in itself. But they make actual special waters that have a very narrow opening and they usually come with a base and they may be a quart size plastic and use a jar to, you know, actual water container that screws into the base. But the chick base is probably the best to use. And you can also to get the chicks attracted to that water base and to drink water. An old-timer trick was to take shiny pennies, right? Get some brand new shiny pennies, wash them off and then actually place them into that little rim of the chickwater. And the shininess basically attracts the chicks to come over and check it out. They pick at it, then they realize that it's water. You have to remember chickens aren't always the smartest. So it allows them to kind of, you know, grab their attention and come over to the water. But best way to kind of minimize the mess is for the first week you might start out with the chickwater kind of just sitting there on the floor of your chick-brooder. But each week you're going to raise it up a little bit. And so I typically will use like a piece of a garden paver or a brick or something along those lines. You can use pretty much anything, but you just want it to be stationary, right? And sturdy so that it holds up the water so it doesn't accidentally tip over. And you're elevating that, which makes it so that when the chicks do start to scratch and you do start to add pine shavings, it gives you a way to kind of help them keep them from getting, you know, scratching those things into their waters. But it is something you have to monitor. And you do have to change the water on a frequent basis. And again, the most important part of that first week or two is to make sure it's warm water. Don't use cold water or just plain tap water. Warm water is important. Did you say not to use tap water? Oh, you can use, sorry, tap temperature water. So if you want to make sure it's on the warmer side, not like room temperature or straight from the tap, meaning because of the water tends to be kind of cold. And the tap, so go with something a little bit warmer, but tap water is totally okay. How often do you have to change that water then if it has to be warm? Well, it should be warmer. It's going to get down to room temperature, but initially it's going to be warm. So you want, you just want to make sure it's on the warmer side when you give it to them. You just don't want it to be cold water, right? So if you have water in the fridge, you're not going to take that out and use that to fill up your chick water. It's just too cold on the system. So you're wanting something a little bit warmer, but you don't have to maintain, you don't have to keep it warm. You don't want to stun their system with the cold water. So always try to use warmer water and from the tap is fine. You don't have to get any special kind of, you know, water-ing filtering system or anything like that. What's funny to me is as chicks grow and they become adult chickens, those chickens, they even though you could have a brand new fresh water available to them, they'll always go after like the muddiest little spot and try to drink water. So they're not too picky as they get older, but when they're chicks, you want to just make sure it's clean, that it has the electrolytes in it, at least for the first couple of weeks. That helps them get off to a good start. If you're still wondering what a chickwater or looks like, we'll have a link in today's show notes, or you can see what they look like before you buy that little chick. Or chicks, how many chickens chicks should you buy originally? People, it's funny because people think, okay, I'm just going to get two or three, but they always end up taking home more, I think, because they just are so darn cute in the feed store. But we usually recommend it, it kind of depends on how much space you have, and also what your goal is, right? So if your goal is to have fresh eggs and that's why you're buying the chickens, the recommendation is usually that there's one chicken per house or per person in your household. Each chicken will lay about six eggs per week, so you can use that into your calculation. But I think four is a great number, and that usually falls within, if you're in an urban environment, most cities will allow you to have between, they, three and five chickens. So four is a great number because you have a couple of extras in there, that way you can bribe your neighbors with some fresh eggs, along with having enough for your household. But it really just depends on how many eggs you go through, and keep in mind too that chickens naturally will go through a period during the year where they're not laying as frequently, and that's, you can factor that into, as far as how many chickens and eggs you want per year, but four is a good number. You have a small yard and you think you don't have the room for fruit trees? Well, maybe you better think again, because Dave Wilson Nursery wants to show you how to grow great tasting fruits, like peaches, apples, blue oughts, and nut trees. 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Let's get back to our interview with Shari Sentus Glover, Urban Chicken Consultant, about how to raise chicks and hens. Let's talk a little bit about where do you keep these chicks? You mentioned a heat lamp, so I would think you would want to be able to monitor that heat lamp as closely as possible. So probably when you first bring them home, you would keep them in the home, but at what point should they be moved outside into a coop? When people first bring home those chicks and they have a brooder, they're normally keeping them in like an extra bathroom, maybe they have a mud room. I've had them in my living room on the kitchen table. Of course. And it's right. When you have baby chicks that are a couple weeks old, it's not only being able to have quick access to them, but you're listening. Clicks are really good at letting people know their chicken mamas know when something's wrong because a chicken, a baby chick, is typically pretty quiet, right? They might make little noises or scratching around. They're doing their thing during the day, but the moment they start to get loud, if they start tripping loud, that's a signal to you that something's wrong, right? Either the light has gone out, the heat's turned off, they're too hot, they're too cold, something, maybe their water got knocked over or something like that. So being able to access them quickly and being able to hear them, even if you're not able to see them, is an important thing to do, especially in the first couple of weeks. A lot of times people think, well, gosh, can I just keep them in the garage? But in the garage, the temperatures tend to have extremes, right? It's either gets really colder on the garage because of the cement floor or maybe gets too hot. You have to be able to monitor that and I think it's much easier to keep a consistent temperature for the chicks, even with the heat lamp. If they're indoors where you are, by all means, it all depends on the space you have and you can be creative on where you can keep them as long as you can protect them and help maintain that temperature. So has the chicks get older? A couple things have come into play. Number one, they're probably pooping a little bit more often. So at that point, you're like, okay, how do I mean really not have that smell? It doesn't smell too bad. I've had other things that have smelled worse. But just you're still changing the litter on a regular basis. You're still making sure they're in a clean environment and keeping up on that. But you're going to move them to that next level, right? Because what will happen within the next two months is they'll start to feather out. So they'll kind of gangly, right? Their feathers are coming in all starts at directions. They're not the prettiest things at that point. But you're waiting for them to become fully feathered. Once they become fully feathered, they actually won't need the heat lamp. At that point, yes, they do need light, but they won't need the heat because they're able to maintain their body temperatures with, you know, with their being fully feathered. So at that point, you have a couple of options. And if it's not too cold and wet outside, then by all means you could have a temporary coop situation where you can move them outside too. Just as long as nothing can get to them, you know, predator-wise. Another option is just at that point, if they've been in the bathroom or the mud room at home, and now might be the time when they're fully feathered to move them to the garage. Again, it's all about space. Adult chickens, standard size or your large row will typically need about two feet by two feet square space per chicken. And if they're smaller, they won't need quite as much, quite as much space. So the idea is that they graduate up to the next cage or kennel or whatever it is. And I've seen people use everything from, you know, dog kennels, maybe with, you know, some wiring rackarounds so that that way the chicks can't get out, you know, to big troughs, to, even if you have a horse barn, right? And you can, you know, wall off one of the stalls, you can use one of those. So just kind of depends on what you have available. And all of this is before they move into the big coop. So your big coop in the meantime, you might be finishing your big coop because a lot of people, again, they'll get chicks before the chicken coop is actually finished. And so, you know, when they're ready to move into that big coop, they're usually, I'm going to say between four or five months old. When do they start producing eggs? Well, it depends on the breed. Different breeds of chickens will mature at different ages. So for instance, the black copper mareans or the morons, as they say, they tend to mature a little bit later. So they're usually closer to about seven or eight months old before they start laying eggs. Other breeds, so maybe the Buff Orpington, maybe the Bard Rock, maybe the Aracana or Maricana, even the Rhode Island Reds tend to be a little bit earlier. They tend to be right around the six months. You have some breeds that are a little bit earlier than that, some that are a little bit later, but right around six months is typically what you're looking for. Let's go back and talk about the heat lamp because if there's one thing I hear more and more about, it's heat lamp fires. So this thing really needs to be looked at and kept under surveillance. It's amazing to me how many you actually hear about when you hear about the fires and the barn fires and chicken coops going up in flames. It's devastating because not only are you losing your chickens and your chicken coop, but now you could have, that could have moved over to your home. We've heard tens of stories where people's barns and houses will get burnt down and was all caused by a chicken heat lamp. When their baby checks, yes, you need a heat lamp. It should be elevated above the brooder because you need to maintain that temperature around 95 degrees until they're fully feathered. But there's alternatives to those heat lamps even. You can buy these, they're basically platforms that emit a, I guess, a radiant type of heat. And you can buy those, so no, there's no heat lamp required. And basically you put that in your brooder, the chicks will move under it when they need to warm up and move out when they warm enough. So those are a fantastic alternative. There's a couple of companies that make those. And so you can definitely invest in those if a heat lamp's not going to work out. But where you see most commonly, where you see those barn fires caused by the chicken heat lamps is in the winter time, right? And that's where you have, they're not actually not chick situations where someone has baby chicks. But there are adult chickens that someone maybe has been concerned with, you know, maybe getting too cold at night. And what I let people know is that chickens are feathered creatures, right? They're just like the birds that you see in the trees in the winter. Just like there's, you know, birds out in nature, they're out there in the winter time, you know, they're in their nests. Chickens are the same way. And those birds, the birds out in the natural environment don't need a heat lamp. And so neither do chickens. And your chickens, as long as they have, you know, some kind of, you know, depending on the climate you're in. So obviously if you're in Minnesota, you're probably going to have an insulated coop. But even those chickens in Minnesota are not going to need a heat lamp. And then for those of us that are here in the central valley, you know, we really don't have much of a winter. We have some days, maybe between five and ten days worth of freezing temps, but your chickens are going to be just fine. And they really don't need a heat lamp. Instead, you make sure that they have a chicken roost. And that allows them to kind of condense their bodies against their little toes, their little chicken legs. And they stay warm and toasty. At the end of the day, they really don't need that heat lamp if they're adults. If they're fully feathered in adults, they won't need it. If the idea of raising backyard chickens appeals to you, you just might be mulling over the thought. Well, why not raise backyard bees too? Well, it just so happens that today's podcast guest, Shari Sintas Glover, besides being an urban chicken consultant, is also an apprentice master beekeeper. In today's Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast, she talks about how to get started raising bees. And we talk with one of the world's foremost bee authorities, Dr. Norman Gary, on how you can become a successful honey bee hobbyist. That just so happens to also be the title of his book too. It's all in today's Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. For current newsletter subscribers, look for the issue entitled Backyard Beekeeping Advice. If you're already a subscriber, it's probably in your email waiting for you now. By the way, did I tell you that the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter is free? Yes, and you can start a free subscription or read it online. It's all free! Find the link to the newsletter in today's show notes, or sign up at our newsletter link at the homepage, Gardenbasics.net. Here on the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcast, today we're talking with urban chicken consultant Shari Sintas Glover. If you're going to be picking out chicks, you want hens. You really, really don't want a rooster if you live in a city. ♪ More and more cities are loosening their zoning restrictions to allow you to have backyard chickens. Backyard hens. There are still zoning ordinances, though, that prohibit you from having roosters. I don't blame them for doing that. But how do you pick a chick that isn't a rooster? You know, even if people that have chickens already will know this too. When you go to the feed store or you go to buy your chicks, you're depending on that salesperson's ability or that hatchery's ability to sex those chicks and actually put them in the right bin. The problem is it can be really hard to tell. I think probably the number one question I see online from in different chats and social media is you'll get somebody that posts a picture of their juvenile chicken. And they're like, okay, can you tell me if this is a male or a female? And I always laugh because by that point, by that age, it's really hard to tell. And especially there's certain breeds that it's almost impossible, right, until they get much more mature around six, seven, eight months of age. There's a couple of ways. So number one is, you know, yes, when you buy your chicks, you know, you're always taking a chance that one of them might have been sexed incorrectly. There are some breeds like the Black Sex Link, for instance, that are the chicks when they hatch. Actually, the color that they hatch as is a de-referentiator of if they're male or female. So those specific breeds, it's easy, right? Because you can tell by the color. But the majority of chickens that you can get these days don't come that way. So things to look for. Luckily, you know, when you're at the feed store, they will have their different chick-brutors labeled. So they'll say, this is all pull-its, right? Pull-its is female chicken under one year of age. So when you're at the feed store, you're looking for the bin that says pull-its. If they say mix run or standard run, that means that it could be boys or girls in that lot. So just bear that in mind. And then when you have a chick home, as you're raising these chickens, there's things to look for. Like the males, obviously, they have larger combs, larger waddles. You can tell by the way their body type is forming and their wings, and sometimes even the colorization of their feathers along their body can give you hints. But for some breeds, it's pretty difficult, right? It's still not easy to kind of tell until they're much older. The good thing is that a lot of communities will have, especially in the farm areas, will have different livestock auctions, that kind of thing. So there are people that do want to utilize the roosters. Some people, that's the one that ends up in the stockpot, right? So they still grow it out. But obviously, if you're in an urban environment, you can't have roosters, right? You can maybe have chickens, but not roosters. So that means you need to quickly find a new home for that rooster. Let's talk about kid-friendly chicken breeds. Is there such a thing? What are the breeds that are best if you have small children? And at what age should children not be handling chickens? Well, you know Fred, it's funny because when I go to poultry shows or, you know, involved in like poor age or a range or FFA, it's funny because that's the kids love the chickens. And when you go to a poultry show, you'll always see kids wandering out holding their chickens. And it's not a health concern unless they don't wash their hands. So when you're talking about younger children, I think that's the challenge. You have this really fuzzy, cute chick and they're so soft. And I think it's really difficult because young children, number one, they can't always control how hard they squeeze or love on their little baby chick. And so you do have to really monitor them. But, you know, we have to remember that chickens can carry some things like salmonella that means washing their hands. That means making sure, you know, you don't really want to kiss your chicken. You shouldn't be kissing your chicken. Or if you're going to be handling your chicken, a lot of people want to hold them up to their faces. And it's like, no, that's probably not the best idea. You definitely can have baby chicks and chickens with young children at home, but you just have to monitor, make sure that they're not handling the chicks without your knowledge, making sure that they're washing their hands, you know, make sure they're not touching their faces, that kind of thing. And it's an important consideration because these days, especially coming up to Easter, people, there's still some times you can find people that want to give a chicken the Easter basket. And I don't think that really works. It's not good for the chicken. It might not be good for that young child either. But as a family, if you decide, yes, I want to raise chickens and we're going to do this as a family effort, you can absolutely find ways to keep, you know, young children safe, keep them washing their hands and keeping them involved and participating and raising the new flock of birds. Is there such a thing as a breed of a kid-friendly chicken? There is. So chickens, there's a lot of different breeds to choose from. And the breeds and the chickens that you really want to home in on, especially for young children and family, you want the ones that are not scared as easily. Well, and actually, now that I think about it, you could do two strategies. You'd either get one, a breed that runs really fast. So the young children might catch them. Or you could get the breeds that are a little bit more docile. So temperament, believe it or not, chickens actually do have different temperaments. And an example of that is one of the more common breeds that you used to see quite a bit was called the Rhode Island Red. Rhode Island Red heads were fantastic layers, but they can be a little skittish. They can be a little more quick to pack, a little more quick to be aggressive. And so as an adult, maybe that's not such a big deal. If they're proficient layers, it's worth it, right? So you're like, okay, they're not necessarily your pets at that point. They're a production of eggs. That's their purpose. As we get more and more into urban homesteading and families keeping chickens, you want to find breeds that are maybe a little bit more less temperamental, like a little more docile. So a good breed would be the Red Star hen, which is, they're always been my favorite for a long time. And that's because they're very friendly. They're not, they're not as scared or skittish. They tend to be the ones that particular breed, ones that follow you around the garden, around about side. They're very curious. And they tend to be a little more docile. So you're able to pick them up and maybe hold them a little bit easier when it comes to that. Another good breed for children of chickens is sometimes the bark rocks, depending on that breeding. Bard rocks can be good or even buff or paint pens. One to possibly stay away from might be actually the Americana's, because they also tend to be a little bit more skittish. But here's the thing, at the end of the day, you know, chicken is going to be a chicken. And so they're going to have, you know, those different instincts in order, if you really, if it's a family endeavor to get, you know, your new flock of chickens, maybe go and look, see maybe the different colors in the varieties or what are tracked to you. More. And I think that maybe each of the kids actually pick out a chicken that they love the best. Now, one I wouldn't recommend for children would be some of the, maybe what we call the fancier breeds, but things like the crested breeds. So the Polish, they just tend to be a little more skittish and a little more hard, you know, harder to handle. But again, it just, it all depends. And at the end of the day, if you're taming them up, if you're working with the chickens quite a bit, you're holding them, washing your hands, but holding them, you can help them be a little bit more relaxed around the younger children. You mentioned the Americana as being probably not a kid-friendly breed, but the Americana has that benefit of laying some beautifully colored eggs, like blue or greenish blue. And I've seen your eggs, Shuri, that your hands lay. Yeah. And there are some that are producing eggs of different colors. Who are those guys? Gals. So that's, so that's another cool thing about chickens. So it's not just their, you know, different feathery styles and colors and varieties, but the eggs can be different colors too. And that's, to me, there's nothing more beautiful than seeing that full, get that basket, you go out, you collect your eggs, you bring them into the house and you have this full rainbow of colors. And you've probably seen them online. There's pictures of all different colors from either like a really dark brown and with a chocolate egg, like the Moran's Lay, all the way to like a reddish brown to even pink, some blues and greens. There's one called One Variety. It's not a recognized variety by the shows, but it's an Olive Baker, right? And the Olive Baker lays these just amazing kind of army green eggs and they can be spotted. They can be just all different colors and varieties. So, though with that in mind, and again, this might factor into when you're picking out which breeds to bring home, what kind of egg baskets do you want to have? Your Americanas, they tend to lay either the blue or green eggs. There is a purebred called Aracanas and they are specifically known for their blue, very deep blue eggs and breeders work really hard to get that amazing blue color. Then you have the Moran's, which I mentioned before, which is like a dark chocolate egg. And what's kind of cool about those is that if you get the purebred types, you can actually not only show the chicken, you can actually show the egg. They have egg shows where they're graded on the color and specifically with the Moran's, it's how deep and dark that brown is. So they're literally as dark as like a cherry wood kind of thing. So, oh my goodness, it can, you know, definitely if you're going to get chickens, figure out which ones lay which eggs you can find some easy guides online and figure out, you know, what's going to make this interesting and fun for you, whether it's the type of the chicken, the breed, the feathers, you know, what they look like versus what kind of eggs they lay, all of that can kind of come into play. From the Garden email bag, Jesus writes in and asks, the trees on my property have sustained a lot of damage with the recent storms, and I want to get some advice from an arborist. Is there one you can refer me to? I would prefer one that isn't affiliated with a tree service company, but I'm not completely opposed to it. I'm a long time listener. Well, thanks for listening, Jesus, and for Jesus and anyone else who's dealing with tree damage after winter and early spring windstorms coast to coast, well, you also might be wondering if your current trees can survive a future heavy wind or rain. In that case, a consulting arborist is the way to go. But what exactly is a consulting arborist? Why do you need one? Today's Garden Basics flashback tip is just for you. Go back and listen or read the transcript to Episode 65 from December of 2020. It's entitled Tree Issues, Consulting Arborists Can Help. You're going to find out why getting advice from a consulting arborist is an excellent investment in the long-term health of the trees on your property. And by the way, having healthy trees can add thousands of dollars of value to your home when you go to sell. Consulting Arborists, give it a listen or give it a read. It's all part of Episode 65 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcast. We'll have a link to it in today's show notes, find it wherever you get your podcasts, and you can get the audio and the transcript from our home page, Garden Basics.net. Here on today's edition of the Garden Basics Podcast, we're talking with Urban Chicken Consultant, Cherie Sentis Glover. We've been talking about picking out chicks at your local feed store or farm supply store. Did you know you can get them in the mail? Cherie has the details. I would think that your local feed store is probably limited in the varieties of chicks they are bringing in. Chicks are available via mail order, but what are some precautions about ordering mail order chickens? I actually love mail order chicks just because you're going to have more options as far as what you choose. But here's some considerations. So one is that you're dependent on the mail service, right, to deliver those chicks in a healthy way so that they arrive safely. If you're able to work with your post office, your local post office, before you order the chicks, go in, talk to the staff, find out, hey, I want to order some baby chicks, what's your procedure here at this post office? Because usually they will arrive, they go by air flight, they come within a day, they're usually next day delivery, and they usually will not deliver them to the home. They'll actually deliver them to the post office, in most cases. So you're going to want to coordinate, make sure that you're available to pick up those chicks right away, so probably within an hour of them arriving at the post office. Ask a lot of questions, meet with your post master or your post office beforehand, find out what you might even want to ask for. Do you keep the chicks when they arrive, especially this time of year? And where do they place the chicks? And hopefully you have a really great carrying post master that's willing to kind of work with you on that. They want to, obviously, a phone number where they can reach you immediately as soon as they arrive. And then before those chicks arrive, you're obviously going to want to have your breeder already ready and set up. You know, it's the right temperature, you have the feed in the water, everything's prepared. So the moment you bring those chicks home, you can get them into the breeder so they're safe and sound. But when it comes to doing mail order, a couple of things. Number one is the chicks are going to be shipped as day old chicks, and they're going to typically come with a little bit of kind of a feeding gel. There's a gel that they include and with baby chicks. But chicks, when people don't realize is chicks can actually live without food or water for the first three days after hatching, which makes it very helpful for when you are or in chicks because you know that they're going to be okay, at least for the first three days. But when you order from a hat tray, you're usually picking a timeframe. So if you go online, you're looking for the breeds and varieties, you're looking for if they're a Pulitzer standard run, and then you get to choose how many and usually a shipping date. So make sure to coordinate that with your schedule so that you're available again to pick up the chicks right away from the post office. But I find this is even though it's kind of stressful having them literally be shipped through the mail, which is something to think about, but we ship everything in them through the mail. I've even gotten queen bees through the mail. There is, you know, it's a great way to get chicks because you have such a larger variety to choose from, and that's because at the feed stores, they have to order a minimum quantity, so they're going to pick the breeds that they think their customers want the most. Right? And every once in a while, you'll find a feed store that maybe they'll allow you to put in a special order along with theirs, which is always a handy option, because then you can get the bird ship to the feed store along with their chicks and hopefully they're saying, man, it off, so you can have a place to land, right, so that you can just go and pick them up from the feed store. But with mail order, too, something when we talk about quantity is some hat trays will have a minimum quantity that you have to order. So, you know, versus others now have figured out how to ship possibly as few as six chicks. So whenever you do mail order, you're probably going to want to have some kind of chicken buddy and then maybe go in on an order together, and that way you can meet the minimum quantities and then maybe get a good variety. You know, there's a lot of options much more than there used to be. You know, get to know the reputation of the hatchery. Is there any special breeds that they really focus on? And you have, you know, everything from quail to pheasants to cookies to chickens. I mean, it's really amazing. Even ducks, even waterfowl, you can even get. So there's a large variety to choose from. If people have their suspicions about the quality of work at their local post office, is FedEx or UPS a viable option? You know, it depends on a hatchery, a wood shipper supplier they use, but I don't know, you know, my experience with the FedEx and UPS. I've had varied experiences with them. They're shipping of items, but typically they will usually, they'll be shipped through the UPS, UPS, and not exactly sure why. I think it might have something to do with the regulations associated with live animals and shipping chickens. Because there are, you know, there are health concerns. UPS and FedEx, they deliver to your home, right? But you don't know they've left what they usually leave their dispatch centers in the morning. They're going all day. It might not be until the end of the day that you might get your delivery of chicks and maybe that factors into it because you definitely wouldn't want your chicks to be in a truck all day long bouncing around. So I actually, I do think that it's better that they go to the post office and in that way, at least you know that they've gone from one spot to another and they're at least inside and is hopefully a safe location in the post office. And then you can run and quickly get them and take them home. Cherise and discover we learned a lot today. Thanks so much. You're so welcome. Thanks for having me, Fred. ♪ The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcast comes out once a week on Fridays. Plus the newsletter podcast that comes with the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter continues and that will also be released on Fridays. Both are free and they're brought to you by SmartPods and Dave Wilson Nursery. The Garden Basics Podcast is available wherever podcasts are handed out and that includes our homepage, Garden Basics.net. And that's where you can also sign up for the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast. That's Garden Basics.net. Or you can use the links in today's show notes. And thank you so much for listening. neck. ♪♪♪♪