Baby chick set up

Mr. Smith and I set these brooding boxes up for the baby chicks arriving this week. We don't know the date. We just get a call from our local farm store telling us to pick up our chicks. The anticipation is killing me! I am so ready to have chickens around here. :D

The boxes are just old totes we had lying around. I cleaned them out and layed a few layers of newspaper down in each, since they are serious poopers. We have a heat lamp hanging over each box. We are doing the 10 egg layers in one. 12 broilers in another and 13 broilers in the last. We have some old thermometers from an old chicken farm, we have one in each box to amke sure we have it hot enough and not too hot to cook them already! HA HA We had a few old lamps we haven't used in a few years. Mr. Smith broke them open to only the metal bar so we could hang the lights and not worry about them being too heavy and smashing the babies.

The temps are:

Week 1: 95 degrees

Week 2: 90 degrees

Week 3: 85 degrees

Week 4: 75 degrees

Then when they have their feathers they can start going outside. They are going to be free range chickens. Which will be interesting with 3 kids running around here and another soon to follow. It will be fun though :)

I just saw this and had to post it.

          Wet Chick = Cold Chick = Sick Chick = Dead Chick

I will be posting pictures of the baby chicks when they arrive and as they grow. We are getting 35. 10 egg layers and 25 broilers that we are butchering ourselves at 8-9 weeks old.