At 9:30 a.m. last Friday morning, Ed Vega drove the 7 miles from his Davis Hatchery to our farm to deliver 1,080 chicks that had hatched as little as just four hours before. They were all less than a day old and full of life. They very quickly settled into their new home and were busy drinking and eating the cracked wheat and corn we provided for them. Once they hatch, chicks eat the rest of the contents of their egg. It takes a few days for their digestion to start working, so the cracked grains is the best thing we have found to help that. If we feed the high protein chick feed right away, it can mess up their systems. They could die. On Monday we started to add the chick feed, and all seems well.
Raising chicks in the summer is new for us, and it presents new challenges—mainly keeping the chicks cool. We change their water frequently to keep it cool and have plenty of ventilation with fans. Please follow the links from our web page to watch videos of the chicks arriving.