How to Care for Baby Chicks in Summer or Fall

No matter what season you’re raising chicks in, it’s never too early to collect baby chick supplies. Learn how to care for baby chicks any time of year.

In Episode 181 of Mother Earth News and Friends, we’re talking with Queren King-Orozco, associate producer for national events at Ogden Publications and a chicken-keeper herself, about the ways you can understand your environment and gather resources to prepare for new summer and fall chicks.

Scroll down for our episode transcript, and scroll to the bottom for our guest bio and show-note resources!

Transcript: How to Care for Baby Chicks in the Summer or Fall

John Moore: [00:00:00] Summer and fall will be here before we know it, which means it’s not too early to start thinking about when you want to welcome some new chicks to your property. We’re talking with Q, associate producer for national events at Ogden Publications and a chick-keeper herself, about the ways you can understand your environment and gather resources to prepare for new summer and fall chicks.

This is Mother Earth News.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this episode, Brinsea, chick incubation specialists. They’ve been focusing on egg incubator design continuously since 1976, [00:01:00] resulting in a wide range of egg incubators, chick brooders, and incubation access. They offer unparalleled practicality, reliability, superior hatch rates, and healthy chicks.

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Jessica Mitchell: Good day everyone, and we appreciate you for joining us on another exciting Mother Earth News and Friends podcast. I’m Jessica Mitchell and joining me today is Q, the associate producer of national events at Ogden Publications. At Mother Earth News for 50 years and counting, we’ve been dedicated to conserving our planet’s natural resources while helping you conserve your financial resources.

And today we’re gonna learn all about planning for summer and fall chicks with Q. So Q, welcome to the podcast and thanks so much for being on with us.

Queren King-Orozco: Thanks for having me.

Jessica Mitchell: Well, you’ve been on a couple episodes with us before and we’ll plug those in our show [00:02:00] notes. Our most recent one with you was how to care for chicks during cold weather, but today we’re gonna talk about some summer/fall chicks.

So before we start, do you want to introduce yourself more to our audience, especially if they haven’t gotten around to hearing some other previous episodes with you?

Queren King-Orozco: Yeah, absolutely. So I’m Q, my name is actually Queren. Like Jess said, I’m the associate producer of national events. That means preparing a lot of the programming for Mother Earth News Fair and figuring out the day- of event duties and behind the scenes working with all of our speakers, the hands-on workshops, the bookstore, that sort of thing. It’s a lot of fun and we’re getting ready for an event here in a month. Um, so I’m really busy getting down to the details and uh, I’m super excited cuz it’s gonna be here in our backyard, in Lawrence. And then other than that, I am a certified aromatherapist and a Master Gardener here in Douglas County. So I do some volunteering in the local gardens, [00:03:00] mostly in the medicinal gardens. And then I’ve had chickens in different capacities over the last few years. I mean, really probably since like 2015 I think. Gone from a flock of 50 to now a flock of only three. And we’ve had ducks in the past, so we have mixed poultry before.

And yeah, so I’m just kind of doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that. Not currently on a homestead, but I feel like I’m getting the vibe of what it means to be an urban homesteader right now.

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, I know, Lawrence is definitely more of an urban homestead vibe around the city.

Queren King-Orozco: Yes. And it seems like everywhere I go in town, like there are chickens.

In fact, I was helping my sister-in-law, she was helping a, a neighbor with the eggs. I went over to help her get the eggs picked and it was like literally in the middle of town. And then there was this chicken on the loose, like running around a yard. So there’s definitely that vibe around town. And then I think I heard a rooster the other [00:04:00] day, somewhere? So I think a lot of people are keeping chickens in the area.

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, for sure. I remember sitting outside at a coffee shop and just hearing chickens. I couldn’t see them, but they were on the other side of a fence in the neighborhood and I just heard them as I was sitting there having my coffee.

Queren King-Orozco: Yeah, they’re, it’s interesting cuz they kind of hide. Like I didn’t, I really, you have to kind of really look for them, but they’re in people’s backyards and there’s some like really fun chicken coops that I’ve never seen because people have to get really creative with coops in the city. There’s one right across the street from my daughter’s school, and it’s like, you would never know it’s there, but it’s like in disguise and there’s probably about 10 chickens.

When Is the Best Time of Year for Chicks?

Jessica Mitchell: Wow. I love that. Well, speaking of raising chickens, today, our topic is summer/fall chicks, and I was curious, when in the year or in the seasons have you typically raised chicks?

Queren King-Orozco: Primarily in the spring, but um, there have been times where [00:05:00] I have started with the chicken process in the fall. And I prefer the spring here in our area because of like the weather. Um, and it’s kind of reversed in the fall where if you started in the fall, you’re gonna go into those winter months, so your egg production’s not really gonna come till the next season. And so you have to be really patient and you have to have a really good setup.

I would say as a beginner, I would start in the spring, during spring hatching season. I think that it depends on the climate that you’re at, but I would say spring is when I typically do that.

Jessica Mitchell: And so we’re gonna first start off with some of those benefits and I would say drawbacks in quotes maybe, or just things to look out for if someone were to want to raise chicks in the summer and fall months or, or leading up to that.

So in your experience, and you maybe touched on this when talking about the spring season, what season have you found is the most popular season for raising chicks? Maybe just even in the [00:06:00] Kansas area.

Queren King-Orozco: Well, definitely I think you see the stores, um, your local farm stores that they put a lot of emphasis in the spring and that’s when you see more breeds, a more, like a larger variety and a larger amount.

I think that these days what I’m noticing is that a lot of people are chicken keeping, kinda like we were just saying, where like it’s everywhere in town. But I think in the last few years with everything going on, we’ve seen that people are more interested and then obviously with the hiking prices of eggs, people are like interested in keeping their own chickens.

And so I noticed that there’s more of an emphasis. Now if you’re someone who likes to hatch your own chickens, I think that the fall is not about time to do it. In the office we usually catch in the spring and the fall. I’ve just seen a lot more challenges when it comes to hatching them or buying them in the fall, going into winter, especially here, because the [00:07:00] temperatures tend to fall pretty drastically, or the weather can just be kind of volatile where it’s all over the place.

And so with those smaller chickens, you’re gonna end up with them inside longer and it becomes not as fun of a process. So if you’re a first timer, that’s not really the best experience to, to get started, and I’ve gotten questions recently of people who’ve gotten their chicks. And it is spring, so it’s a great time, but they’ve gotten them and they’re not fully prepared for it, and so I think you need to have at least one or two seasons of raising chicks before you really say, I’m gonna get some in the fall.

Now you could run into the situation where like you got some chickens in the spring and then something awful happened and some predator got your chickens and now you need to start all over. That’s a totally different situation, I think.

How to Care for Baby Chicks in the Fall

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, that’s a really great point. During the pandemic years, I wonder if people found themselves with chicks [00:08:00] in the fall or the summer, like those less popular months, as a beginning chicken keeper, just because it was so popular.

You know, I wonder if it dawned on a lot of people to think about the season they were buying chicks versus just wanting to buy chicks now.

Queren King-Orozco: Yeah. Well I think you saw a lot of, I remember everyone buying chicks not being available at the actual store, or the hatcheries were like out of stock. I remember wondering how is the experience going for people, because I think there was a sense of rushing.

And then we had this whole experience of all the chicken and bird flu that went through every state. And so that was, I think, a really big challenge where it started to happen around the time where people maybe were new to chicken keeping and maybe people were like, I tried it once, now I gotta try it again.

And again, in the California area or somewhere like Florida, [00:09:00] This maybe is not a big issue because you could start in the fall and be totally fine, but I had someone reach out to me the other day and they had ordered some chicks and they had to go from Iowa to California and so they went through like the cold all the way to California and they lost a few of those chicks.

And so they were asking me like, what happened? Is it something we did? And I said, well, that’s a really long travel. So my, you know, I think it’s great that you order them, but I think this is your first time. Maybe walk into a store and get some, because a lot of the times hatcheries are sending them to those same stores.

So it’s essentially the same one that you would’ve gotten, but now they’re traveling at a, you know, differently, to these stores. I just felt bad because it was their first time and Iowa and Kansas are still having cold days. I mean, it was like 30 degrees this morning. And so generally that you want them to be in that box for like a day, not for like four or five days. And what if the mail gets [00:10:00] delayed?

Jessica Mitchell: Right. So I’m hearing a lot of the reasons why someone would want to raise chicks in the summer or fall. A lot of it can be because of just their weather and maybe something in like Florida or California, it would be a lot easier because the winter climate is not gonna be as intense.

Are there any other reasons in your head of why someone would want to raise chicks in the summer or fall, maybe when it comes to just the productivity of the chickens or anything like that?

Queren King-Orozco: Yeah, so we mentioned earlier how raising chickens in the fall or starting in the fall maybe makes it delayed for when you see them actually lay their eggs, and that’s because they have to go through the whole process of they’re chicks and they lose their feathers. And then they like sort of, they go through the molting season and then they get to that time where they start laying eggs. So if you do it in the winter, you’re going to see that they go through their molting and then [00:11:00] they’re kind of like adult chickens. And then the winter happens, which delay like slows down their production.

And the production is, more the delayed production of the slow production, has to do with how much daylight they’re getting. So the daylight hours affect the way that they lay. So if they’re not getting as much of that sunshine, then they’re not gonna lay as much. And there are ways to mitigate that. I know some people will install lights in their coops or whatever. I have never done that. We’ve been totally fine. We usually get chickens that produce a lot of eggs. And then again, if you’re just getting started, then you’re like, now you’re thinking about lights and you’re thinking about all these things. So it’s starts to get really complicated.

How to Care for Baby Chicks in the Summer

Jessica Mitchell: So we’ve talked on the weather for the winter and some of that delay-ness. Is there any drawbacks potentially, if someone wanted to raise chicks in the summertime?

Queren King-Orozco: I’m kind of like saying maybe don’t start chickens in the fall. But really, actually it does give them time to [00:12:00] grow in the winter, so you have more time. Whereas in the spring you’re sort of like, come on, like, lay some eggs and, and you don’t have as much of that, like, hibernation time.

To your point, like the summer can mean that they get dehydrated really easily. And so there are some, you know, drawbacks to the spring and summer where it is real, if you’re in a really hot climate, it gets really hot. So you have to make sure that they’re well taken care of. I think just that if you do start in the fall, then you’re gonna have to have the space because mine, we hatched during Hatch Week, which was at the end of February. It’s almost time to put ’em outside cuz they’re starting to like kinda lift up and they’re trying to get out of their container. I know because it’s spring that I can take him outside and put him out sooner than in the winter, so I’d have to make sure that I have space for them. That’s warm.

Jessica Mitchell: Yeah, definitely.

When To Buy Baby Chick Supplies

Jessica Mitchell: Before we hit our commercial break, I wanted to ask one more question, [00:13:00] which is just thinking about that planning process. So this episode is gonna come out in the beginning of April, which is springtime or just starting springtime, and we’re talking about fall and and summer chicks. So is there even a concept to planning too early for planning your chicks, or is this really the time to start thinking about summer and fall chick preparation potentially?

Queren King-Orozco: Well, I’m a gardener first, so I am a planner at heart, so I think that the sooner the better. I don’t think that, I mean, first of all, if you start planning now, you’re gonna find all of those items at your store a lot easier because they’re already out. I’ve noticed that when I go into the stores, of course you can order things online, but when I go to the store, I notice that during the spring there’s a lot of chicken stuff. Every light you can think of, every box you can think of. I mean like it’s just like fully stocked cuz everyone’s so excited. It’s spring, you know, you think Easter baby chicks, [00:14:00] bunnies, that kind of thing in this spring. So it’s like everywhere. And I noticed that like in the middle of the year, there’s a lot less stock of those things.

So, I’m a visual person. I like to go look at the things that I’m gonna be using, um, and try them out. And then maybe if it’s like a specialty item, order it online. Maybe I’m a, I’m just rare that way, but I like to support local stores and so I always have, I have a tub and this tub has everything that I need for the chicks. So it has the light, it has the water, and then I keep the actual tub of mulching that they need, bedding that they need. And so I think that it, it’s not a lot of stuff that you need, but I think it’s good.

Now, when it comes to like your chicken coop and that kind of thing, I think if you’re thinking of fall, I think it would be great if you could get started now and figure out what size you need, how many chickens you wanna have, what size is your yard if you’re in a town like I am, what are the regulations for keeping chickens? Cuz I think [00:15:00] that’s something you really be need to be aware of. Of like how many chickens I can have per square foot.

And then the coop I think is a bigger deal. Understanding like placement for your yard, where should I put this so that they can be in the best spot possible for when it gets really hot or really cold.

Jessica Mitchell: So there is no such thing as planning too early. And I love your point too, about how springtime is typically more of a popular time to raise chicks, so there’s probably gonna be more out there, if you just wanna go now, get your stuff and even if you don’t use it for a couple months, you at least have it and there’s gonna be more of a supply there. I think that’s a great point.

Queren King-Orozco: And also like you can start researching breeds. What do you want in your flock? Because there are so many breeds out there. Maybe check to see like what your local store carries versus what you can order from a hatchery. I know the breeds that I like. I am trying some new breeds this time, but that’s because we hatch chickens in the office. It was sort of, here’s what you get, and now these might be [00:16:00] roosters, so I might have three roosters. I tried a few tricks this time to see if maybe we could guess what they are. I’m trying to stay positive that, that we did our due diligence and researched properly.

Jessica Mitchell: That’s great. I love it. Well, we’re gonna take a quick break to hear from our sponsor, and when we return, we’re gonna tackle some more seasonal preparedness to get ready for your summer or fall chicks. So stick around.

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And now back to our [00:17:00] conversation with Q.

Assembling Your Baby Chick Supply Kit

Jessica Mitchell: All right, we’re back with Q, talking about planning for summer and fall chicks.

So we started touching on topics of planning, and it’s not too early to start planning for your summer and fall chicks. So for this half of the episode, we’re gonna be going more into details about that.

Building off of what we were talking about before our break, Q, before chicks even arrive, what are some other things that, uh, chicken keepers should already know about when it comes to their environment? Such as, what’s your seasonal climate like? What type of weather occurs? Any information that’ll help inform you of any procedures or plans to have in place even before chicks arrive?

Queren King-Orozco: So the question is just sort of like the environment that you should have prepared for them before they arrive. You know, I think you can get really complicated in the process of what you should have ready, or you can be pretty simple. I literally have a Rubbermaid tub [00:18:00] that I use for the first few weeks. I usually go to the store.

So we hatched chicks. So we had about 21 days before the chickens came home. So I had about 21 days to prepare. So I just, I went to my basement and I went to the tub that I have, and I checked to see what I had. I found out that they were carrying lights that are not the red lights. So like it makes everything look red. I found out the store had like clear ones that were still warming, so I went and got one of those just cuz I find it that it looks nicer. That’s literally why I got it. It looks nicer when I take a video. But yeah, so I think that you want to make sure that you have the setup already ready.

So you wanna have the bedding, you wanna have whatever box you’re gonna use. I know in the past when we were at the farmhouse, we used a really large wooden box that could house like 20 of ’em at a time. Whereas now I have one that is literally just a Rubbermaid tub that you would use. [00:19:00]

And then you wanna have the proper feed for your chicks. I have a few bags so that I have ’em ready to go, and then a waterer and a container for their food. So I knew that I needed an extension cord that was gonna be pretty long to be able to plug in the light. So I wanted to make sure, and then that I had a space where the dogs couldn’t get in because the dogs tend to be curious and they’ve done damage before.

So I knew those things. So these are things that maybe you don’t think about until you’re like, I brought ’em home. What do I do with them? Do they need to eat? Do they need to drink? And if you’re ordering them from a hatchery, they’re gonna be pretty hungry. They’re gonna be in that box, they’re gonna have enough to eat. You know, there’s usually something in there that the hatchery will put. Yeah. And then other than that, I needed to make sure that I had a coop figured out for them and how large that coop was gonna be. So I know that I have three, and I’m gonna use them, as mine, as an example. I know that I have three right now, but I wanna have a total of six to eight.

So I needed [00:20:00] to get a coop that would fit that many as I started adding them. And then I knew that it needed to be dog proof and I knew that I wanted them to have enough space to run because I can’t let ’em free range the same way that I did back at the farm and when we were at the farm, it was a much more elaborate system where we had an actual coop that could house 40 to 50 chickens. Um, there was a space for them to roost. And then, uh, we had a six foot fence because we had a lot of coyotes there. So we had, uh, I think we had about like 10 people come over and they helped us put the fence up. There was a chain link fence.

So really, again, it could be like as simple as like, I’m gonna have three chickens and they’re gonna go in the backyard. I’m just gonna go to the local farm store and pick up whatever coup they have and or I’m gonna build a coop and I need to build it so that they would fit. Or I’m gonna have a operation of 50 chickens eventually, so I wanna be ready for that. [00:21:00] And the first time I ever started with chickens I used a shed and we turned it into a coop by adding, uh, some features to it. And so we actually had to like clean that entire space cuz it was a, it housed pool toys and pool equipment. And so we had to make sure that it was like, aired out cuz there was a lot of chemicals in there.

You know, if you’re doing, if you’re gonna be doing this in the summer. And, and again, you’re gonna be thinking of winter also, but you wanna think of like, do they have shade? Do they need to have shade, or do I need to install some sort of drop or something that will keep ’em safe in the sun whenever it gets really, really hot. And it gets really hot here in the summer. And so we have to think about all of those things before we really get started. And uh, one of our speakers, Melissa Caughey, she released a book this year that is, I believe it’s called My Chicken Family. And it’s literally a baby book for chickens and it walks you through the entire process. Um, you literally can put a picture of your baby chick in the front and [00:22:00] it walks you through the whole process of like, picking the breeds, how many, like what do you need at the beginning to take care of your baby chick? It’s like you’re bringing a baby home. So it kind of is, cuz before you bring a baby home, you wanna make sure you have all those items before you take care of the baby. And so it’s kind of like that with chickens, kind of like it is with a puppy. It, it is very similar. And to me they’re very much like pets and so I wanna make sure that I have the correct feed. So you wanna research what type of feed you wanna give ’em.

Jessica Mitchell: Oh my gosh. I love that little baby book idea. That’s so great.

Queren King-Orozco: It’s adorable.

Weather Concerns for Backyard Chickens

Jessica Mitchell: I think you’re also, you know, talking about all this preparation and stuff, that also speaks very much to just understanding your weather and environment, especially if you’re gonna be in months that could potentially have a lot more hotter days or colder days.

When you’ve prepared for your chicks, how, in your experience, to what extent would it be important to understand, you know, the weather occurrences, the [00:23:00] humidity. Um, I mean, you were saying the, the ordinances if you live in a city or something like that. Um, but I think a lot about, you know, even just like weather events and things like summer and fall and, you know, having that knowledge in the back of your head before you even get your chicks of what you would do if some flooding were to occur or like something like that.

Queren King-Orozco: Yeah, so I was thinking of a few things while you were saying that, and um, I think even with the climate end, we recorded a podcast all about like winter, and I, I think in that episode I started talking about summer quite a bit because I feel like summer is also pretty tough. And to be honest, like we’re going in right now, we’re going into a season of a lot of rain. And so in fact, we’ve already had a lot of rain. And so you have to think of like, how, how does that affect the space that they’re in in my yard? Is this a space in the yard that gets really muddy? And, and, and then what if the temperature drops and they’re all wet? Like there’s that [00:24:00] question. So I think, again, I’ve always had more losses in the summer than I have in the winter.

And I think because in the summer, the heat can be really unpredictable and they have to have a lot to stay hydrated and they can trample each other or they can have, um, uh, you know, they could, they could have a heat stroke. I think I had mites in the summer. You know, like I’ve had, as I’ve learned, I’ve had, um, these experiences that have taught me that the summer can be pretty rough on them, and. And then here, like if there’s like high winds or hail, you have to be prepared for that. And there’s some things that you can’t prepare for or you can prepare so much and then the rest is like not up to you. Again, having the proper shelter for them based on your space. Like back at the farm, if we would’ve had a small coop, like the ones here in town, it would’ve gotten blown over. In fact, we did have one coop that got blown [00:25:00] over. There was no one in it, but it got, there was a microburst and it got taken into the storm, and so that, that’s happened.

Um, so understanding your, your weather patterns, and then your breeds. Chickens are actually really hardy in the winter and there are things that you can do to mitigate that, you know, like frostbite and those sort of things. But there’s only so much you can do in the summer. It’s really hot and everybody needs a lot of space. And so space is really, really important because if they start getting on top of each other and they trample or say you didn’t, you know, you have to think about how often am I gonna have to clean this coop based on the size? Because now you’re inviting those germs into your coop. And so, so there’s that sort of thing to think about.

And then actually last year, the whole flu situation really caused a lot of concern. I was really concerned of, okay, if I have chickens and I raise them, are they just gonna drop? How am I gonna mitigate all of this [00:26:00] if this happened? We’ve had things happen at the farm with one of them got a flu and then, you know, they all got it. Several of them died or whatever.

Jessica Mitchell: For one thing, I wanna plug another episode. We talk with Dalia Monterroso about extreme weather environments for chickens. So if, if there’s a listener out there who, you know, you don’t just have a summer and a fall, you have a extremely hot summer, you know, talking triple digits or, or maybe you live in a, a really extreme winter environment in the negatives. We do have an episode where Dahlia will highlight some breeds that do well in those very much more specific hot and cold environments as well. So that might be a good thing for people to check out.

How to Care for Baby Chicks When It’s Too Hot

Jessica Mitchell: Another thing I was thinking about too, uh, in the summer months is when we’re talking about raising chicks and there, there is a timeline to them before they can go outside cuz they, they need to have some warmer temperatures, and I wonder if, you know, there’s some mitigation when [00:27:00] it, in the summer months. But, but at the same time, chicks, you know, need to be at like 95 degrees when they’re really, really young. And, you know, as, and then as the weeks go on, like the temperature requirements get a little lower and a little lower. I’m wondering if maybe if you’ve had any of that experience when it comes to, um, incubating or brooding chicks before they’re fully outside and maybe they started in a garage, but then the garage was like too hot or something and then they had to go somewhere else.

Queren King-Orozco: So I think the general rule is six to 10 weeks before they go outside, but it has to be at least 50 degrees. And so we haven’t hit that here like consistently again. This morning my car was frozen, so I haven’t ventured to take them out even though they’re starting to get very like flighty. Understanding that you’re gonna have to watch the weather closely, and that that’s the general rule where they don’t really need to have that light all the time.

So six to 10 weeks, [00:28:00] we’ve always been more conservative about it. So usually we wait till the 10 weeks and then that’s when we take ’em out. But I think the weather has really always held us back. Because it’s, it’s not really till about Mother’s Day here that it really starts to be, okay, we’re in the sixties, fifties, and it’s consistent.

And you’re right, you have to think about here, like tornadoes or, um, you know, there’s places where you have hurricanes. What are you gonna do with your chickens when there’s a hurricane or, you know, I’ve seen people put their chickens in their bathtub during those extreme things. Um, so there’s always that, I always think of “Friends” when, when people do that.

Um, so yeah, I think, you know, thinking about what breeds and what, what you’re gonna do with them, if there’s these extreme weather. I know there’s a gal, a a friend of mine that, um, she’s in, uh, Maine. And so she is always posting these photos and videos on her social media of like [00:29:00] her, and she’s got all kinds of animals, but she’ll post like, you know, we have this much snow and the chickens are cooped up and they have heater, like a type of heater in their coop and, um, I think for the summer too, you can have a, we’ve had a fan before. Just kind of blowing. Um, so, um, one thing I didn’t touch on earlier, but in the summer you really wanna have good airflow. Um, and even in the winter, actually, air good airflow is important. So, um, our old coop at the farm had windows on each side and the wind, the, the wind would just kind of like blow through and so it would keep that constant airflow.

You don’t wanna have that moisture. And then in the winter, if you have that moisture, the reason you wanna have that airflow is because if for some reason there’s water that gets in and then the chickens step on it, then now they’re gonna be at risk for frostbite. Going back to, um, just that airflow is really important.

You know how often you’re cleaning. [00:30:00] So for example, with my chicks right now, I, about every two days, even though there’s only three of them, I’m going through and cleaning their space, making sure they don’t have pasty butt or anything like that, going to cause a problem later on. Once we install our coop, I’m gonna make sure that there’s enough airflow coming in.

And actually, to be totally transparent, I don’t have a coop right now. I’m debating on two different styles that are really, really different. And this is my first time that I’ll have an actual coop in town. Uh, I’ve had a coop that was smaller out in the country. That one actually got completely destroyed by a tornado, like a microburst of a tornado.

But I’ve been doing some research because I want to make sure, based on my yard, that it’ll be the proper coop.

Jessica Mitchell: Now, we touched a little bit on food and water and light earlier, but do you want to go into a little more detail, maybe compare and contrasting the food and water requirements for chicks [00:31:00] in summer versus in fall or the lighting requirements? I’m, I’m assuming that in summertime there’s probably gonna be more light and you don’t have to worry as much about how much light they’re getting versus in fall when the days seem a little shorter.

Queren King-Orozco: Right now our chicks are on chick feed and they generally are on that. It’s actually a starter feed. They’re usually on that for the first eight weeks.

And then, um, there’s kind of like an in between and then they go at 18 weeks into a layer feed. And so that layer feed just has different protein content for them to start laying, and it helps them. I find that they’ll, they’ll need more in the winter because there’s less to forage, especially if you allow your chickens to forage.

So that’s really one thing to look for. You know, I haven’t had to buy any feed, cuz these are chicks that I brought home from work. You know, I think those are things that you should go to the store and investigate before you, you get to know what you have locally [00:32:00] or if you’re gonna order.

I know that the range of feeds are really wide. There are organic feeds to fermented feeds that you can do. We typically do a pellet feed, which goes a long way, and then you can look into what sort of scratch you can feed ’em. And then in the summer, I’ve always given them scraps. Any vegetable that they can eat, I’ll throw out and they’ll really have a higher production based on that. Or like the eggs will just be a lot nicer because of that.

Incubating Summer Chicks

Jessica Mitchell: If someone is gonna be incubating their eggs during these summer or fall months, so maybe they’re not ordering chicks like already hatched, but they’re ordering some eggs. Do you recommend any sort of precautions? If they’re gonna be incubating during a time that might be a little warmer or colder than usual?

Queren King-Orozco: Um, you mean as like, as far as like the actual process of incubating or, like after the fact?

Jessica Mitchell: I would say maybe during [00:33:00] it and it could be after the fact as well. If it seems like those factors would come more into play after the actual egg incubation is done.

Queren King-Orozco: We have used Brinsea incubators at work when we’ve hatched, and we’ve used a variety of them over the years, and they can be slightly different as far as like the humidity levels.

And so some might need a little bit more water and maybe the room has something to do with the environment, but I would say that the outside temperature doesn’t really affect the inside temperature because there’s a temperature setting on the actual incubator. And then as you’re getting ready to hatch, you have to put a tray in for them to hatch in, and then you change the humidity. And I’m not gonna say what the humidity is cause I can’t remember. That the humidity has a lot to do with the rate of your hatch and obviously also the eggs that you have and the quality and all of that. The temperature really has to do with having a high quality incubator and setting it up properly. So if [00:34:00] you’re gonna do that, I suggest getting your incubator really early and studying it because we’ve had to learn how to do the settings.

And the settings are a whole thing. So you wanna make sure you watch some tutorials and some videos of how to set it up and then run it and see how it runs. Then get your eggs and put ’em in there. Then you’re not gonna be worried about, are my eggs okay? Did I mess something up in the incubator? You know, you might get some of that fear anyway, but you wanna try and mitigate it as much as possible.

We’ve done it several times now. So we’ve figured out like we don’t have to candle the eggs every time just because we’re curious, because that does kind of mean that we have to open the lid and the humidity level is gonna change, and then that’s when the room temperature is going to affect the humidity level, because if it’s really dry outside and you open it several times, then you’re gonna really dry it out.

Keeping Mice Out of Your Brooder

Jessica Mitchell: During the summer and fall, even if you are incubating and brooding your chicks inside, I [00:35:00] wonder if there are any external predator factors. I say predator in quotes cuz indoors, you’re not necessarily gonna get the same hawks and owls and such, but during those summer and fall months, have you ever noticed, even in a house in general, little critters more likely to scurry in during certain months, you know, maybe when it’s colder or something like that. Has that ever happened in your experience or anything that you’ve come across?

Queren King-Orozco: Mice are gonna be your main issue. And I was actually thinking about this earlier when we were talking about the setup I have for them, cuz they’re in the basement right now and I’ve had them in the basement, I’ve had ’em in the garage, I’ve had ’em in a barn before and they’ve been totally fine.

Um, but mice, and mostly because of the feed. So I was having this thought the other day, I was in the basement and I was like, okay, the feed is really close to the actual, uh, chicks. And I don’t know that the mice would ever do anything. They’re gonna come and either feed. That was my [00:36:00] concern of this is a great attraction to, for a mouse to come in here.

We were talking snakes the other day at a Master Gardener’s group. And we were talking about how they get into everything here in Kansas. So you definitely wanna think about like your area. Whether people like it or not, that snakes get into places here, um, and they look for the warmth and that kind of thing.

Um, and we do have some venomous ones here in, in the Kansas area. So, and I, you know, I can only imagine in Texas what it, what you have to be really careful about. We’ve never had an incident with that. Most of our issues have been our dogs. Um, have been coyotes or maybe an opossum who’s trying to get in. But dogs are definitely the one thing you need to be on the lookout for. Specifically, I think that dogs get really excited and you bring your chicks home and, and then you take ’em outside and it’s just something that you maybe didn’t [00:37:00] think about, but they, Jess knows how much my dogs love chickens.

Jessica Mitchell: And that could be at any time of year.

Queren King-Orozco: That can be at any time of year, any size. So you’re gonna have to do some training for your dogs. You’re gonna have different levels of, you know, excitement based on the dog’s personality.

I did wanna go back to one of the questions earlier, or one of the things we were talking about, and it was feed. Between six and 20 weeks, is when you switch to grower feed, which has less protein than the starter feed. And then you need layer feed. If you’re gonna be laying chickens that lay eggs, you really wanna pay attention to like, while you’re feeding them around those times to make sure that they’re getting the proper nutrients. Cuz maybe you’re like, why are my chickens not laying as many eggs, but I have this really high production breed that could be why. We’ve always had a lot of luck with our chickens, but we’ve always fed ’em extra stuff and allowed them to [00:38:00] forage. So I think that’s really important.

Q’s Favorite Chicken Resources

Jessica Mitchell: As we’re wrapping up, are there any other things that came to your mind that you wanna share or any resources that you wanna share with our listeners if they wanna learn more about planning for summer and fall chicks?

Queren King-Orozco: Yeah, so definitely what comes to mind is a few episodes of the podcast. I know I was in the winter, uh, preparedness one, and then there’s a few other that others that you might wanna mention. And then our Fair online has several chicken videos and including a master course that literally walks you through the process of getting started and everything that you need, takes you from every aspect. I have an episode of that we did at Self-Sufficiency Saturdays where we talked about chicken keeping and we talked about hatching and we went into those little details of how much space, what type of feeds, everything that just kind of takes a really long time to discuss.

Uh, there was a, how to get started with [00:39:00] chicks back during the pandemic early on. I definitely would check those out. If you’re curious, if you wanna get started, I would say there’s probably lots of guides on the Mother Earth News website that can walk you through the process. But when in doubt, just ask us.

We are going to be in Lawrence, Kansas, April 29th and 30th. We have a chicken keeping presentation that’s gonna be done by Amyrose Foll. She is extremely knowledgeable with all livestock. I’ve heard that she has a dancing rooster, so I would definitely wanna know about that. Yes. Um, and then we are going to be at Erie, Pennsylvania and West Bend, Wisconsin in the fall.

And so we’re gonna have lots of livestock presentations when it comes to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and also here in Kansas. So any of those three events, I would highly recommend that you plan to attend them so that you can learn in person with the people that are [00:40:00] doing these things.

Jessica Mitchell: And we have no shortage of chicken content here at Mother Earth News.

Queren King-Orozco: That’s right. I feel like we have endless content when it comes to chicken, and that’s honestly, a lot of what I’ve learned has been through Mother Earth News and just having chickens. And the first chickens I ever had were the ones we hatched at the, at the office. And I took ’em home. And so I’ve learned all sorts of tricks through that process.

Jessica Mitchell: Well, thank you so much, Q, for joining me today and sharing your knowledge and experience about this. It was really great to talk about this.

Queren King-Orozco: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Jessica Mitchell: We thank you, the listener, for joining our podcast and encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues, and family. To listen to more podcasts and to learn more, visit our website at www.MotherEarthNews.com/Podcast.

And remember, no matter how brown your thumb is, you can always cultivate [00:41:00] kindness.

John Moore: You’ve just listened to our episode about planning for summer and fall chicks. You can reach us at Letters@MotherEarthNews.com with any comments or suggestions. Our podcast production team includes Carla Tilghman, Jessica Mitchell, John Moore, and Kenny Coogan.

Music for this episode is “Travel Like” by Jason Shaw. This Mother Earth News and Friends podcast is a production of Ogden Publications. Learn more about us at www.MotherEarthNews.com.

Thanks again to Brinsea, our sponsor for this Mother Earth News and Friends podcast. You too can experience the Brinsea difference and maximize your hatch rates with Brinsea incubators that precisely monitor temperature and humidity and are made of antimicrobial [00:42:00] materials.

Brinsea ships worldwide and provides stellar customer support to answer all your questions. Hatch your chicks with Brinsea, the leader in innovative incubation research. Learn more at www.Brinsea.com.

Until next time, don’t forget to love your Mother.

Meet Queren King-Orozco

Queren King-Orozco is an Associate Producer of the MOTHER EARTH NEWS Fair, certified aromatherapist, Master Gardener, chicken keeper, educator, and photographer living in Kansas. Queren helps program our beloved MOTHER EARTH NEWS Fairs to bring our audience the knowledge necessary to live a more self-sufficient and sustainable life.