How To Buy Baby Chickens?

It’s very important to know about how to buy baby chickens if you want to have healthy and productive chickens. You must have to buy high quality and healthy baby chickens to achieve the successful and wonderful goat of raising chickens.

Buying good quality chicks will ensure healthy flock and your dream of collecting fresh eggs from your very own hens that you have raised from the chicks. However, here we are describing more about how to buy baby chickens.

How to Buy Baby Chickens

Here we are shortly describing about the steps for purchasing chicks.

Choose Breed

First of all you have to choose a breed. Determine which breed you want to have. There are may different type of chicken breeds available and all have unique personalities and uses.

Some of these breeds are very good for egg production, some are good for producing meat, some are good for both meat and eggs production, and some breeds are very good for raising as pets or for show purposes.

So, determine your production purpose first and choose the appropriate breed. White Leghorn, Hyland, Shaver etc. are very good for egg production.

Wyandotte, Light Sussex, Black Orpington, Barred Plymouth Rock etc. are very good for both meat and eggs production. Silkie, Asil, Shamo etc. are good for raising as pets and for show purpose.

After selecting the breed, contact with your local poultry chick supplier and ask them for the desired breed. You should choose a few different breeds, just in case you don’t get your first choice.

Eggs or Hatched Chicks

Determine whether you want to have fertile eggs or want to purchase day old chicks. You can buy fertile eggs if you have an incubator. And this will save you some money.

But if you don’t have an incubator, then you can purchase day old chicks. You can also search your local online classifieds for purchasing fertile eggs or day old chicks.

Set the Brooder

Prepare the brooder before bringing the bay chicks home. Set the brooder at 95 °F temperature, and reduce the temperature at the rate of 5 °F each week until it reaches room temperature. Keep feed and water inside the brooder.

Tips for Buying Healthy Baby Chicks

Good quality and healthy baby chicks have some signs. Look for the signs mentioned below.

• Healthy chicks generally become active, but they sleep more than the fully grown chickens.
• The chicks should not be dirty.
• Their eyes should be bright and non-dull.
• Healthy chicks generally do not eat or drink for all the time. They generally eat and drink occasionally.
• The chicks should not be panting or piling on top of each other.