How do I avoid coccidiosis?

People in the pastured broiler business generally put their birds in the pasture pens at two weeks of age. I used to think that this was too early (commercial broilers get heat for about four weeks, and they aren't exposed to damp and wind the way pastured birds are), but I've changed my mind. The two-week broiler chicks are amazingly resistant to chilling. Also, if you use non-medicated feed, you need to get your chicks out of the brooder house early if you're going to avoid an outbreak of coccidiosis, which is an intestinal parasite. Before three weeks of age, chicks rarely come down with coccidiosis. Pasture pens that are moved daily break the parasite's life cycle, so putting the chicks on pasture at 2-3 weeks makes sense.

I'm less convinced that egg-type pullets are up to this treatment, though some people report great success. Personally, I have no objection to using medicated chick starter with pullets. I stop using it several months before the pullets begin to lay, so there's no chance of the medication being transmitted through the egg to my customers. Amprolium (the coccidiostat of choice) isn't toxic to humans, chickens, or the environment in any event.

My personal conclusion is that you should use medicated starter feeds if the birds are going to be reared in confinement beyond the first three weeks, and nonmedicated feeds otherwise.

 What should I feed the chicks?

For the first two days, it's a good idea to feed the chicks nothing but chick scratch or cracked corn. If brooder temperatures are less than ideal, chicks tend to "paste up" and have dried feces (or "poop," as it is technically known)  attached to their rears, which can plug up the works and even kill them. A whole-grain diet for the first couple of days reduces the volume of poop and reduces the problem. After two days, chick starter should gradually replace the grain. This can be done by feeding grain in the first feeders and chick starter in the regular feeders.

In general, chicks need to be fed a balanced diet, which means one that's been formulated by a poultry nutritionist, not one of the harebrained recipes that you'll find floating around the Web.

Chicks, like older poultry, can balance their own diets pretty accurately if offered a variety of foodstuffs, but all of the ingredients have to be available in palatable form. Grains are deficient in vitamins, minerals, and protein, but rich in calories. Most other feeds are deficient in calories. Chick starter is a blend of grains, high-protein feeds, and sources of vitamins and minerals.

If you are raising broilers, use a broiler feed such as Purina's MEAT BUILDER or Nutrena's MEAT BIRD COMPLETE. We've had excellent results with both. Birds being raised in confinement beyond three weeks should be fed medicated feed from the start; birds put on range early in life will do fine on non-medicated feed.
 

How do I set up my brooder area?Prepare your brooder area before the chicks arrive and fire up the brooder 24 hours in advance. The entire brooder house doesn't have to be heated; in fact, you can brood successfully if the brooder house is below freezing so long as the brooder is powerful enough to keep the area under the hover warm. In a very cold house,  you need to put the waterers so they're right next to the hover so the escaping heat will keep the water from freezing. In cold weather, it's doubly important to prevent floor drafts through the use of draft guards about 18" high that encircle the brooder. This keeps drafts away and keeps the chicks from wandering too far from the hover.

Chicks should have water available right way. It should be warmed to 90 F or so; day-old chicks are easily chilled. I use one-quart chick waterers placed on 3/4" or 1.5" thick lumber scraps about 4" square. This keeps the waterers from sinking too far into the litter. You want the waterers pretty close to the floor, though, because chicks have no instinct to search for water much above ground level. The quart waterers are just bases that screw onto one-quart mason jars. You can buy plastic jars, but they are almost opaque. Glass jars are better because you can see the water level more clearly. Use four quart waterers per 100 chicks.

The chicks have a tendency to drown in waterers with wide bowls for the first day or two, which is why it's better to use little waterers at first. After a few days, you can put in regular waterers without risk.

Ideally, the chicks should be fed about three hours after they've been placed in the brooder. This gives them time to drink first. Chicks tend to be dehydrated, and it helps a little if they drink before they eat. If you can't absolutely positively be around three hours later, though, feed them at once. Their first feed should be given on flattish surfaces at ground level, since their instinct is to stand over (or in) their food and pick it up from ground level. The box lids from chick shipping boxes are the traditional first feeders, but egg flats are also good. Use one egg flat per fifty chicks.  Some people just use a single thickness of newspaper to put the feed on. In any event, you want about one square foot per fifty chicks, and you want to put a thick layer of feed on it. The chicks will waste a lot of it, but this will only go on for a few days.

I like to have the regular feeders set up and filled from the very beginning. Other people add them at three days or so. Starting after three days, you gradually taper off the amount of feed put into the first feeders, and quit using them altogether at a week or so.

How should I brood my chicks?A chick does not have the ability to maintain its own body temperature without an external source of heat. Naturally brooded chicks are warmed by nestling against their mothers. Groups of chicks can maintain body heat by huddling together, which is why chicks can be shipped by mail.

It is possible to brood chicks in an insulated box with feathers or flaps of cloth hanging from the ceiling, retaining their body heat allowing huddling to work more effectively. But such brooders are tricky to use and less effective than ones that supply external heat.

Large commerical poultry operations generally use large propane brooders with a central brooder and a metal canopy, or hover, that retains the heat. Each brooder handles 1,000 chicks.

Farmers brooding fewer than 1,000 chicks at once generally use electric brooders.

Brooding needs to be performed in an area where drafts, predators, and cats can be excluded. Some people brood their chicks in their homes, but after trying this myself, I can't recommend it. The smell isn't too bad for the first week, but it becomes really repulsive after that, and the entire room containing the chicks becomes coated with a dust composed largely of dried chick manure.

Brooders always present a certain amount of fire hazard, so there's a lot to be said for brooding the chicks in isolated, cheaply constructed brooder houses with metal roofs.

Brooder houses generally have litter floors, using wood shavings, sawdust, or straw. Wire-floored "battery brooders" can also be used.  They use wire floors with a droppings pan underneath. They smell worse than the other kinds of brooders.

What kind of brooder should I use?

Many of the suggested brooder arrangements and even some commercial brooders assume that the chicks are in a heated room. This includes the classic "60-watt lamp in a coffee can" brooder, battery brooders, and even the electric hover brooder sold by GQF. If you have a heated area, fine. If not, you need something more powerful.

A 250-watt heat lamp suspended 18"-24" over the brooding area that is completely surrounded by a draft guard about 18" high will brood 100 chicks at 50F minimum room temperature. (If the minimum temperature is higher, you can add one chick for each degree. If the minimum temperature is lower, subtract one chick per degree.) This method works very well, but is absolutely dependent on the presence of an effective draft guard, which you can make out of cardboard, plywood, roofing paper, or whatever.

The heat lamp must be high enough that all the chicks can sprawl out in its warmth. If it's too low, they'll push and shove to get into the beam. If it's too high, they'll let you know because of the ear-splitting peeps the emit when they're cold.

Make sure the bulb can't fall to the ground.  It can set litter on fire if it comes within a few inches of it. Hang it with a chain, and arrange it so the cord acts as a safety line in case it falls off the chain somehow.  You can buy commecial brooder lamp holders that have a couple of bent wires in front of the bulb so it won't touch the litter even if it falls to the floor.

A better brooder uses heat lamps mounted horizontally in a plywood brooder box insulated with shavings heaped on top. . It uses only half the electricity per chick as a heat lamp, is less dependent on the brooder guard, and is excellent for cold-weather brooding. This type of brooder is very easy and cheap to build and has quite a track record (it was introduced in 1940).  Information on this type of brooder can be found here