Episode 46: Cracking the Cost of Eggs and a Beginners Guide to Raising Chicks
On this episode of Maine Farmcast, Glenda and Colt explore the rising cost of eggs. The discussion highlights the impact of the concurrent bird flu epidemic, which has led to the loss of 166 million poultry, causing a disruption in egg supply. They clarify the differences between broilers and layers, explaining why chicken meat prices have remained stable while egg prices have soared. The hosts break down the economics of raising backyard chickens, comparing the costs of feed and equipment to the price of store-bought eggs. They also provide practical advice for those considering raising their own poultry, emphasizing proper brooder setup and predator control. Heat lamp safety, choosing the right breed for Maine’s climate, and preventing common poultry diseases are key takeaways. With expert insights and real-world experience, this episode offers valuable guidance to both novice and seasoned poultry keepers. Listeners can also submit questions and topic suggestions to the show for future discussions.
Episode Resources
Automated Transcript
Glenda Pereira: 00:26
Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. This is your co-host, Dr. Glenda Pereira, and today, I’m interviewing my co-host, Colt. You’re in the studio today.
Colt Knight: 00:37
I’m always in the studio. I I feel like I live here half the time.
Glenda Pereira: 00:41
That’s a good point. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 00:43
I’m trying to make it more cozy.
Glenda Pereira: 00:44
And you did. So, you’ve done a wonderful job bringing the studio together and making it a, good environment for producing content.
Colt Knight: 00:55
We’re trying to improve the audio quality in here, but also, the ambiance of the room so folks are more comfortable. I mean, this was a pretty dank storage closet when we took over this space. So so covering up all the
Glenda Pereira: 01:12
Lead paint.
Colt Knight: 01:12
Dankness. Yeah. We try to avoid mentioning the lead based paint most of the time, but it’s staring us right in the face. Yeah. We don’t touch blanket over it,
Glenda Pereira: 01:21
though. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 01:22
We did put a blanket over it.
Glenda Pereira: 01:23
And we don’t touch it, so we’re good.
Colt Knight: 01:25
We added some some beautiful pictures on the wall.
Glenda Pereira: 01:27
Yeah. You’ve got some nice Angus cattle here.
Colt Knight: 01:30
We added some sound baffles to cut the reverb off of the room. And I added some neon signs of various farm critters to to brighten the space up a little bit.
Glenda Pereira: 01:43
Yeah. And we’re recording this on a beautiful fake spring day is what we call this fake spring because it’s teasing us. It’s nearing upper forties and the sun, it feels so nice and warm. We’ve had a rough winter.
Colt Knight: 02:01
Just enough to melt the ice to pool up to freeze again overnight.
Glenda Pereira: 02:06
Causing more issues on the farm. Yes. But it’s a nice nice fake spring day. And so, it’s it’s looking bright out here. Yeah.
Glenda Pereira: 02:18
And so the topic at hand today is obviously, regarding one of your specialty areas, poultry. So you’ve been getting a lot of media inquiry about egg prices, layers, broilers, etcetera, what’s going on. And so you thought, it’d be good for us to, make a a podcast episode for our listeners to kind of demystify some of the content that’s out there and to kind of clarify things. And then, even more so, to kind of support people if they are gonna be purchasing chickens this spring. So, yeah, let’s let’s start at the top.
Glenda Pereira: 02:59
Let’s demystify some of the the data out there.
Colt Knight: 03:02
Why are egg prices so high?
Glenda Pereira: 03:05
Yeah. Let’s do it.
Colt Knight: 03:06
And it’s a pretty simple reason. The bird flu epidemic that hit in 2022 has claimed 166,000,000 chickens. Yep. You know, our commercial egg layers are around 300, three hundred and 20 eggs a year. They usually lay eggs for two years and then they’re replaced.
Colt Knight: 03:31
And so when we think about that, each chicken is gonna produce 600 eggs, right, over her lifespan. And when we lose a 66,000,000 chickens, whether and that’s that’s not just laying hens, that’d be some broilers, and there’s probably some turkey numbers mixed in with that as well. But when a large commercial flock tests positive for bird flu, they euthanize the entire flock to prevent the spread because this is highly pathogenic and it we don’t want it to spread to other poultry, but we really don’t want it to jump between species. Yeah. You know, we’re trying to prevent that from becoming epizoonotic, basically.
Glenda Pereira: 04:12
And so you said something, because you were trying to clarify. So so broilers and layers are two different types
Colt Knight: 04:21
Yeah. They’re two different breeds of chickens. Yeah. Broilers or the chickens raised for meat production are a Cornish cross mix. And so whenever you buy chicken at the grocery store, restaurant, whatever, it is a Cornish cross bird.
Colt Knight: 04:37
Those birds get to size in about four weeks, maybe six weeks on the long run of things. And so we can replace if we lose a chicken barn that has a hundred thousand broilers, we can replace those fairly quickly. Mhmm.
Glenda Pereira: 04:54
Our layers
Colt Knight: 04:55
Layers, on the other hand, are a different story. Yeah. On average, laying hens take five months or twenty weeks to reach the age which they start laying eggs. And so if you lose a hundred thousand Yep. Of those, you know, it’s at least five months before they can be replaced.
Colt Knight: 05:13
And and realistically, it’s longer than that because when we, depopulate those barns, they have to sit fallow for a while to let that disease and stuff clear out. You can’t just euthanize the birds, clean it, and then stuff more birds in there. They need to set for a little while to make sure that that stuff is cleared out. So realistically, when you lose a hundred thousand birds in that one barn, it might take upwards of a year to replace it. And that’s impacting the supply chain.
Colt Knight: 05:44
So there’s far less eggs available. And then the laws of supply and demand that just supply is low, demand is high, and so egg prices are going up.
Glenda Pereira: 05:53
Yes. Yeah. And so and the reason you brought this up was because some people have been asking, well, why are egg prices so high, but not chicken price? And so it was great to clarify.
Colt Knight: 06:05
Yeah, because the laying hens, it takes at least five times longer to replace.
Glenda Pereira: 06:12
So for us in the livestock industry, replacements is, you you know, just part of the business. And so I think for us animal scientists, we understand why we have high prices right. The dairy industry is in a similar place. We’ve done a lot of beef on dairy, and now we are short on heifer replacements.
Glenda Pereira: 06:33
It’s, you know, we kind of understand this, but maybe the average consumer doesn’t understand that there’s a replacement piece of this. And those replacements, you just don’t build overnight.
Colt Knight: 06:44
Right? With all the misinformation about COVID that has gone around and that we experienced going through the pandemic, folks are leery of bird flu information. And the bird flu is a serious threat. It’s not a pretend thing. We take it very serious so that we can we’re protecting our food chain and the health of the country.
Glenda Pereira: 07:08
Yep. Yeah. So, yeah, the replacement piece is really important. So we just can’t build our numbers back up quickly because the number of birds that are being euthanized or depopulated is increasing because of the bird flu. So I think you pulled some numbers together for economics of eggs and egg prices now that we’ve clarified some of the terminology we’ll be talking about today.
Colt Knight: 07:34
So this happened last year when we when egg prices went up and out and again, that was due to bird flu, but it went back down because we caught back up, and then we caught another wave of bird flu. And, it’s actually about triple the amount of deaths we’ve had since then. But folks might wanna know, well, since eggs are $8.09, $10 a carton at the grocery store, is it cheaper for me to raise my own chickens Yep. And raise my own eggs? And, historically, whenever we had that answer, it was always no.
Colt Knight: 08:08
You know, the before the pan the the COVID pandemic, we ran the numbers, and it cost about a dollar 20 to a dollar 80 per dozen eggs when you could buy at that time, you could buy a dozen eggs at the grocery store for a dollar or less. Right? So it was still more expensive, but not too bad. I just ran the numbers again this morning. And so if you if you wanted to get started with chickens, okay, an average chicken an average chick price right now is $6.18.
Colt Knight: 08:44
Before the pandemic, it was maybe a dollar or 2. Yep. And so those that’s super high. And, again, a lot of the hatcheries had to depopulate their numbers and restart. So supply and demand, again, chicks are more expensive.
Colt Knight: 09:01
And so they’re gonna eat about if you’re feeding a conventional, nonorganic diet, they’re gonna eat about $9 in feed to get to the size where they’re gonna start laying eggs. If you want to raise them organic, that feed’s going to cost you 19 and a half dollars. So more than double to get those chicks started on an organic diet. And then so that first year that you’re going to have those chickens, your commercial white chickens, like your your leghorns, they’re laying around 300 eggs a year, three twenty on a good good year.
Glenda Pereira: 09:40
Under optimal conditions.
Colt Knight: 09:40
Under optimal conditions.
Glenda Pereira: 09:42
That’s with light. Controlled environment.
Colt Knight: 09:43
Everything. Yeah. Now, our brown egg layers, our brown commercial egg layers, like our our Rhode Island reds and things like that, they’re gonna lay 250 eggs a year. Yep. And, our dual purpose chickens, and these are the ones that most of us are gonna go to the hardware store or feed store and buy, like your barred rocks, your ostralops, your easter eggers, all those kinda prettier chickens that that most folks buy for backyard production, they’re gonna lay around 200 eggs a year.
Colt Knight: 10:13
Yep. And so if we subtract the twenty weeks it takes for them to get up to the the size to start laying eggs. We got thirty two weeks left in their first year of production. And they’re gonna lay between ten and fifteen dozen eggs each.
Glenda Pereira: 10:28
Yep. Because we account for the winter and how they reduce their productivity in the winter. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 10:34
Mhmm. And so that first year, if if you’ve got just your regular dual pursed chicken, conventional, it’s $4.86 a dozen eggs is what it costs you for production. That’s not including the cost of feeders, waterers, electricity, sawdust, if you have to buy brooders or or any of that’s not included. Just just the cost of the chicken and and the feed. You’re looking at that first year, $4.86 a dozen.
Colt Knight: 11:07
If you’re feeding an organic diet, it’s $8.34 a dozen. Yep. Now that seems really high, but when the grocery store prices are $8 or so, well, this is actually cheaper. Right? The the second year, we’re gonna get the full year of production, and we’re not gonna have, the cost of the chick or the starter feed included there.
Colt Knight: 11:33
Then our dual purpose breeds, it’s about $3.42 a dozen per eggs. And on the organic side, it’s gonna be about $5.84 a dozen per eggs. So when we look at the long term outlook of this situation, egg prices are high right now. And so if we already have chickens, then we’re in the black. Right?
Colt Knight: 11:56
Right. We’re doing good with our chickens. A lot of times, you can drive around Maine here locally in the backwoods and and pick up your eggs for four a dozen. So you’re you’re really coming out good economically compared to the grocery store. But what about in six months?
Colt Knight: 12:12
We’re already seeing egg prices starting to drop now. So by the time that these chickens are ready to start laying, they’re still going to be at that $350 close to $6 a dozen price. But those grocery store eggs are going to drop back down to to what we historically saw as a more normal price. So should you buy chickens this spring? Well, if you want chickens, yes, you Buying chickens, it’s a rewarding thing.
Colt Knight: 12:42
You know where your food comes from. Your kids get to play with the chickens, you get to learn about it. But if you’re doing it just to save money, right now, the math works out on the eggs. But I would say by when fall gets here, when they start laying eggs, you’ll probably be upside down on egg prices. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 13:02
Or about the same.
Glenda Pereira: 13:04
Right. Yeah. No, that’s a good point. And, I think it leaves our listeners with some, you know, things to consider. But for the folks who are like, hey, you know what, Cole and Glenna, like, I kind of need to get outside more.
Glenda Pereira: 13:19
I’m trying to I bought this house. I’m trying to enjoy my backyard. I have good predator control because that’s a big thing with backyard chickens. You need to have predator control or you’ll come back one day and the hawk took your entire flock.
Colt Knight: 13:36
Foxes are really bad around Central Maine.
Glenda Pereira: 13:38
Yeah.
Colt Knight: 13:38
Bobcats. But the thing about Maine is we have all the predators.
Glenda Pereira: 13:41
We do. Raccoons.
Colt Knight: 13:45
Yeah. Possums even.
Glenda Pereira: 13:47
If you have good predators ermines. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 13:51
Dogs, coyotes.
Glenda Pereira: 13:52
Yep.
Colt Knight: 13:53
Bobcats, lynx, bears.
Glenda Pereira: 13:56
Yep. But if you have good predator control, you know, I’d I’d say that’s, you know, consider your threats that right right at then and there. But if you have good predator control, where do folks start, you know, purchasing chicks and and kind of setting up their setup at home?
Colt Knight: 14:12
So for most beginners, they usually purchase their chicks from the feed store or the local hardware store. And, you know, about this time of year, I think this weekend, they started hitting the shelves in most of our feed and hardware stores. You start hearing the peeping and you go up and you look in and you see the little cute, fuzzy chicks and then folks buy half a dozen or a dozen chicks and then they take them home. And buying chicks from the hardware and feed store is a good place to buy them. Ordering them directly from the hatchery, that’s what the feed store does.
Colt Knight: 14:46
That’s a good, good place to buy chicks. You want to avoid maybe the parking lot flea markets or the auctions and things. There’s a real biosecurity risk there that you’ll be bringing in some pathogens. Plus, generally don’t get high quality animals in those kind of places. If if you know a real reputable farmer, you can buy them directly off the farm.
Colt Knight: 15:10
But I think my my strongest recommendation is buy them directly from the hatchery or your local feed or hardware store. But before you purchase those chicks, you should set up your brooder at home. I think that’s a mistake a lot of folks make is they they get excited when they see the cute fuzzy chicks, they purchase the chicks and all the materials at the same time, and they come home and then they set it up. Those chicks have really specific temperature requirements. So the first week they’re alive, we want the ambient temperature in their brooder to be 95 degrees.
Colt Knight: 15:47
And then every week, we’re going to decrease that by five degrees. So it’s 95, 90, 80 five, 80, so on and so forth until they get feathers. And then they don’t need supplemental heat because they’re they’ll keep themselves warm. Depending on which breed of chick you have, that could be three to six weeks, basically. Yep.
Colt Knight: 16:07
But so let’s say we want to get chickens. Well, we want to set up a brooder, and a brooder is just kinda like a box. That’s just the the the area that they’re gonna live while they’re growing up. We wanna make sure there’s enough room in there. We wanna make sure that it’s it’s easy to clean.
Colt Knight: 16:26
They’re gonna have some clean, dry bedding, whether that is dry kiln dried sawdust Yep. Not sawdust so much, but shavings. We wanna avoid anything dusty. We wanna avoid anything that’s green wood. And, we avoid hardwoods on the chickens because when they get wet, they can create some tannic acids and things that are a little harsh on them.
Colt Knight: 16:49
So we’ll prevent that. I mean, newspapers, you can buy little wood pellets nowadays that that make really good bedding for those chicks. We’re gonna keep them in there. And then but how do we keep them that 95 degrees or whatever? So we’re gonna set up that brooder, and we’re gonna have clean water in there.
Colt Knight: 17:11
We’re gonna have food source in there. And then most folks are gonna use a heat lamp. And to be honest with you, I don’t like heat lamps because they’re a serious fire danger. The Poultry Veterinary Medicine Association this time of year is always putting out press releases on the dangers of heat lamps in your house and whatnot.
Glenda Pereira: 17:35
Especially if left unattended.
Colt Knight: 17:36
I mean, heat lamps are very dangerous. They they they get really hot, and you’ve got them over kindling. Yep. You know, dry sawdust, cardboard, wood. I mean, that stuff will go up in a heartbeat.
Glenda Pereira: 17:51
Like a Christmas tree.
Colt Knight: 17:52
Yeah. So if you do use a heat lamp, there’s a couple, basic rules we wanna follow. One, when you purchase the heat lamp, make sure the heat lamp has a guard. Even if it’s a metal guard, that’s that’s fine. The clamp that comes on those heat lamps, those were intended to, like, dry paint.
Colt Knight: 18:14
Those were not intended to use for livestock situations. So we’re actually gonna take that that clamp off and throw it away. Yeah. Those clamps fail 100% of the time eventually. Yep.
Colt Knight: 18:25
And that’s how things catch on fire. You got that super hot heat lamp, and then the clamp fails, and that heat lamp just tilts down, and it sets the brooder on fire.
Glenda Pereira: 18:35
Yep.
Colt Knight: 18:35
And so if you’ve got that near your house, you could lose your house, your barn, you’re definitely gonna lose the
Glenda Pereira: 18:40
chicks. Animals.
Colt Knight: 18:41
Yeah. And so that we wanna avoid that at all cost. And the what we’ll do is on the back of that heat lamp, there’s also a d ring. And so we’re gonna hang that light from the ceiling.
Glenda Pereira: 18:53
Yep.
Colt Knight: 18:53
Or we’re gonna suspend a frame over top of the brooder, and we’re gonna hang that light. It’s also really nice when you do this because as those chicks get older, we’re gonna increase the height Yeah. Of that light to change the temperature in
Glenda Pereira: 19:07
the brooder.
Colt Knight: 19:08
Yep. So before we get the chicks, we’re gonna set that heat lamp up on the brooder, put our thermometer in there, and make sure that it’s acclimated to that 95 degrees. Because move those chicks are in a really stressful situation. Right? They were just hatched.
Colt Knight: 19:26
They were put in a box and shipped to Maine, probably from Ohio or Pennsylvania, maybe Missouri.
Glenda Pereira: 19:33
Right. Some in the Midwest.
Colt Knight: 19:34
Yeah. And so they’re really stressed out. Then they were put from that cardboard box into the brooder at the the hardware store, and then you’re gonna take them and then drive them down the road to your house. And and that stress will make the chicks immuno compromised. Yep.
Colt Knight: 19:49
So they’re more susceptible to disease and fatality and whatnot. So when we get those chicks home, we wanna put them in a nice environment. You don’t want to wait another twelve hours for that environment to acclimate to the proper temperature. And you can tell when those chicks are stressed because they’ll peep really loud. So when when you hear them peeping like, peep, peep, peep, peep, peep, they’re stressed.
Colt Knight: 20:14
And when you’ve got them at home, it’s either because they’re they’re too hot, they’re too cold, it’s drafty, they’ve run out of water, or they’ve run out of food. Yeah. So listen to your chicks. If they’re I mean, they’re a little light peeping in the background that’s like really hard to hear from a distance. That’s normal.
Colt Knight: 20:32
But when you can hear them from across the room, that is they’re signaling that they’re stressed some kind of way. So we’re gonna set that brooder up beforehand. If you have to use the heat lamp, if you’re doing it indoors, in a climate controlled, like your house or something, you do not need that big two fifty watt red heat lamp bulb. It costs 45 to $75 a month just to plug that thing into the wall. Yep.
Colt Knight: 21:00
But it’s just too hot. You can get you can take that bulb out and put like a hundred watt bulb in there. You can go to the pet store and get those ceramic heat lamp bulbs for like lizards. Those are really good. Plus, modern heat lamp bulbs blow burn out if you just look at them sideways.
Colt Knight: 21:19
So you constantly replace them. And every time you move them, it breaks the filament. Those those good ceramic lizard lights, you know, they don’t break.
Glenda Pereira: 21:28
Right. They work out much better. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 21:30
Or in a better case scenario, we can get a brooder plate. It looks like a little table, and then it it it’s like a infrared heater. Yep. And then we just set that in there. And there’s a couple advantages to that.
Colt Knight: 21:46
One, they use, a third the less electricity. They’re not a fire danger. And the chicks are not gonna have daylight twenty four hours a day. And so they’re gonna sleep at night. So if you’ve got them in your house, you don’t have to listen to them scratching around and peeping all night long.
Colt Knight: 22:04
You set that to the height of their back. And as they get older, you just
Glenda Pereira: 22:09
Yep.
Colt Knight: 22:10
Lift it up higher and higher.
Glenda Pereira: 22:12
Yeah. That’s really, sweet. And how much does this cost? Because that sounds like probably your best option for safety and for comfort for those chicks.
Colt Knight: 22:21
Yeah. The brooder plates are gonna run you about 30 or $40 versus
Glenda Pereira: 22:25
So reasonable.
Colt Knight: 22:26
Versus the heat lamp at, like, 12 or $15.
Glenda Pereira: 22:29
Yep.
Colt Knight: 22:29
But once you break the heat lamp bulb once Yeah. Then once once you pay that 70 $45.75 dollar electricity for two months in a row, it it kinda it’s it’s just a much better bet to go with the brooder plate. Yeah. Most brooder plates will do about 20 chicks. So if you get more than that, you need more brooder plates.
Colt Knight: 22:50
But if you do use the heat lamp, you want to hang that thing and and don’t use those big 250 watt bulbs if you’re not out in a non climate controlled right area. And when you get your chicks home, if you especially if you order them through the mail, what I like to do is put a little sugar in their water. And so as I take them out of the box, I’ll dip their beak in that sugar water. It gives them a boost of energy and then set them down in there. And it’s amazing how they just instinctually go straight to that water.
Colt Knight: 23:23
Yeah. But if you prepare your brooder before you buy the chicks, you give them that that sugar water, the mortality will be far less.
Glenda Pereira: 23:33
They thrive.
Colt Knight: 23:34
They’ll do a lot better. The other thing that kills chicks is coccidiosis. Yep. And that’s a protozoa, an internal parasite. That’s the number one cause of chick death.
Colt Knight: 23:46
And so we will feed it’s called a medicated feed, but it’s not actually antibiotics. It’s just a thiamine analog, which basically tricks those protozoa into thinking that they’re consuming thiamine from the chick when actually they’re consuming something that looks like thiamine, but it’s inactive. Yep. And so it prevents them from getting that that coccidiosis. There’s no withdrawal period on that.
Colt Knight: 24:15
It’s not an antibiotic. So feeding medicated feed is a a good idea.
Glenda Pereira: 24:21
Yeah. That’s that’s some really good tips to start off. And like you said, any animal who’s going through a transition period is gonna have a lot of stress. So your job is to minimize those stressors
Colt Knight: 24:34
stress as much as possible.
Glenda Pereira: 24:35
Because like you said, it’s potential that it’ll lead to mortality or loss in your production. And so what you’re trying to do is minimize all of those things and setting up your brooder ahead of time is gonna set up an environment in which the chicks will succeed in.
Colt Knight: 24:50
And then we’re gonna make sure they’re comfortable, you know, the whole time they’re in there. And what you might notice, if if you’re using a heat lamp or a brooder, and they’re they’re huddled up real tight under that lamp or huddled up real tight under that brooder, that means they’re cold. Now, if it the opposite, if they’re all sitting on the very edges of the brooder, like as far away from the light or that that brooder plate, well, you know that it’s too hot and they’re trying to get away from the heat. And then if they’re all dog piled up into a corner, that means that there’s a draft going through the room. And and they’re they’re trying to avoid that draft.
Colt Knight: 25:27
You wanna avoid dog piling as much as possible with chicks, not just it’s their comfort level and stress is important too. But when they dog pile, they’ll actually suffocate Yep. Each other. Yeah. Goats do the same thing.
Colt Knight: 25:41
If you ever have goats or freshly shorn sheep in an adverse, winter, weather event, they’ll dogpile and smother each other as well. Yep. It’s unfortunate. So we wanna prevent that
Glenda Pereira: 25:52
Right.
Colt Knight: 25:52
At all costs.
Glenda Pereira: 25:54
Yeah. So, you know, checking with a thermometer is probably your best bet in doing that on a daily basis to
Colt Knight: 26:01
make Yeah. You just get one of those dollar thermometers and just keep it right on you. Right. At chick level. Right?
Colt Knight: 26:08
Not not at your eye level. At chick level inside the brooder. You wanna know what their ambient temperature is.
Glenda Pereira: 26:16
The last thing I was gonna say, so we’ve got feed, we’ve got water, and the clean environment is crucial. So that’s why when you mentioned you want something, even though it’s, it’s likely to catch on fire, you want that because, those chicks are gonna be used, are gonna be soiling that area where they’re also sleeping in. And so, you know, a lot of things like to grow in moisture and heat, and that’s the perfect place where the chicks are defecating and, there’s there’s nice heat there all the time. So you want to make sure you’re cleaning that out regularly.
Colt Knight: 26:54
When you think about environments where bacteria thrive, one, wet, right? It needs a little moisture. And two, eighty five to like 140 degrees, right, is when bacteria log rhythmically That’s why you don’t want to wash your meat in the sink because you’re just creating an ideal environment for bacteria to replicate. Yep. Same thing is true with your bedding for all of our livestock species, but you know, the chicks especially.
Glenda Pereira: 27:28
And
Colt Knight: 27:29
chicks don’t use a lot of bedding. So if you buy one bale of shavings, which I think is $6 or $7 now, it’s gonna last you the whole time. Right. But then change it whenever you need to. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 27:39
You want it to be about an inch to two inches thick. And chicks love to play in the food and water, and they love scratching. And so multiple times a day, you’re gonna have to go clean out their water bowl and their feed bowl because they’re gonna fill it up with sawdust, and then they might make it to where they don’t have any access to water. I prefer using nipple waterers when I brood chicks because then they can’t they can’t scratch
Glenda Pereira: 28:06
Right.
Colt Knight: 28:07
Sawdust into the the upside down type waters. Yep. And if you use a nipple waterer, they stay clean. And but you wanna put it the nipple even with the top of their head. So, again, you have to hang it.
Colt Knight: 28:20
And as they get older, you have to raise it.
Glenda Pereira: 28:22
Right.
Colt Knight: 28:23
You you want the nipple to be even with the top of their head. That way, when they they tilt their head back, their beak is in the ideal spot to drink from the nipple.
Glenda Pereira: 28:30
Yeah. Any more tips like that that could be helpful to folks that are just starting out and investing in some of this equipment?
Colt Knight: 28:38
Well, one, make sure when you buy chicks, if you want laying hens, to buy pullets. Pullet is the name for the female chicks. And, if you buy what’s called straight run, that means they did not sex the chicks, and 50% of the chicks will probably be roosters and 50% will be hens. So when you’re at the store picking out your chicks, most stores are getting better about this. When I was a kid, you would just get all roosters, because all the hens went to the commercial land facilities, and they always mixed the breeds.
Colt Knight: 29:20
So it would just be like white chick, brown chick, black chick. And then some places you could pick which ones you wanted. Then some they just gave you whatever they caught first. Nowadays, they try to separate them and label the breeds pretty
Glenda Pereira: 29:33
good.
Colt Knight: 29:34
They try to label whether they’re straight run or pullets. If you’re doing this for egg production, get the pullets, spend a little bit extra money and buy the pullets, as opposed to a straight run because you don’t want three hens and three roosters. One, you don’t need roosters for egg production. Yep. They don’t need to be there for egg production.
Colt Knight: 29:59
But if you do have three roosters and three hens, their hormones are gonna get quite wild. And they’re they’re gonna they’re gonna be constantly jumping on top of the hens and give them a hard time and and making it way more stressful. The hens probably won’t have any feathers left. Yep. Roosters are gonna fight with each other and and you want to avoid that.
Colt Knight: 30:20
Yeah. If you want to have one rooster around, that’s okay. I mean, but try to avoid having multiple roosters whenever possible.
Glenda Pereira: 30:28
Yeah. Yeah. That was a great tip.
Colt Knight: 30:31
And pick a breed that’s cold tolerant here in Maine.
Glenda Pereira: 30:34
Maine. Yeah. Yeah. For the for our listeners who are Maine based, even though you’re gonna, you know, put some insulation, change your management in the winter.
Colt Knight: 30:46
For chickens. If you’ve got cold tolerant breeds, you just need to keep them clean, dry, and well ventilated. Yep. And out of the weather and out of the draft. Yep.
Colt Knight: 30:56
So if you have an uninsulated coop, but you close-up the windows in the wintertime
Glenda Pereira: 31:02
Right.
Colt Knight: 31:03
If you close it up airtight, when the chickens breathe, they put moisture in the air, and basically that increases the humidity. And so it’s hotter when it’s the humidity is hot, and it’s colder when the humidity is high. Right? So we wanna we wanna have good ventilation. So we can put louvered window panels or doors or eaves or something in there to keep the ventilation up good.
Colt Knight: 31:25
Dry bedding and their perches are really important.
Glenda Pereira: 31:29
Yes.
Colt Knight: 31:29
If you’re thinking about a perch, most folks would think that chickens prefer, like, a round stick type perch because if you if you hold your finger out and wrap it around with your other your other hand, it’s just like, oh, that that just looks natural. The way they keep their feet warm in the winter is they rough up their down feathers up around their feet. So if they have a really skinny stick, their toes stick on the bottom of that stick. Yep. And they’ll get frostbite and they’ll turn black and fall off.
Colt Knight: 31:59
Yep. So the best the best way to do that is if you’re going to use a round stick, basically a log, you want it to be about three to four inch diameter minimum. And if you use two by fours, lay them flat instead of on edge. They get that whole three and a half inches of space. They they don’t care that it’s flat.
Colt Knight: 32:21
I mean, a lot of folks think they want it round. They don’t they don’t they don’t care.
Glenda Pereira: 32:25
Yep.
Colt Knight: 32:26
But turn that two by four where it’s laying flat so they can ruffle their feathers up around that and prevent frostbite. Yeah. If you’ve got if you’ve got the the drafts prevented, they’re not gonna get frostbite on their comb either, so they’ll be okay.
Glenda Pereira: 32:40
Yeah. So you’re mentioning, cold tolerant breeds. Are there some that folks in Maine are there some that folks in Maine should be looking out for?
Colt Knight: 32:49
Wyandottes, Australorps, Brahmins, Bardrocks are all good. There’s there’s more to Dominique or
Glenda Pereira: 32:59
Yep. Yeah.
Colt Knight: 33:00
Type chickens. Usually, what we’re looking for are ones that don’t have big fancy combs and waddles because that’s just begging for frostbite Right. In our extreme weather. But the the most of our dual purpose breeds that you will find for sale at the local feed store are gonna be more of your cold tolerant breeds. But it doesn’t hurt to just kinda Google that before you go to buy chickens.
Glenda Pereira: 33:29
Yep.
Colt Knight: 33:30
Get your nice cold tolerant.
Glenda Pereira: 33:31
Yeah. And so with that, let’s just quickly, review the couple of things that you had mentioned. So first, you wanna make sure that your brooder is set up at home. Even before you think about getting the chicks in, that’s the first step. Setting up the environment, feed water so that when they get home, they can get off on the right foot and thrive.
Glenda Pereira: 33:53
Right? So that was the first step. In addition, you had mentioned some other things.
Colt Knight: 33:58
Well, heat lamp safety. If you’re gonna use a heat lamp, very important. Throw that clamp away. Use the appropriate sized bulb. We don’t need to to roast the chickens when they’re they’re that young.
Colt Knight: 34:11
I’ve I’ve seen it done a lot. You gotta be really careful with that. Listen to the chicks. You know? If you hear that that loud peeping, you know something is wrong, and you can go through and diagnose that pretty easy.
Colt Knight: 34:24
You know? One, look. If they’re equally distributed throughout the brooder, the temperature’s probably good. If if they’re all huddled up in the corner, there’s a draft. If they’re all right under the light, they’re cold.
Colt Knight: 34:36
If they’re all on the very edges trying to get as far away from the light as possible, then they’re probably too hot. Or maybe they’re just out of food and water. Those are the other things that can be.
Glenda Pereira: 34:46
And then thinking about the breeds you have in purchasing pullets because you’re gonna wanna predominantly have female chickens that are gonna be Yeah. Look look for the pullets when
Colt Knight: 34:56
we buy chicks.
Glenda Pereira: 34:57
Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Well, that was some, good advice. And thank you again, Cole, for providing some, of this information that you don’t really learn through Google.
Glenda Pereira: 35:08
Right? Your nipple feeding suggestion, your other suggestion on ways to minimize coccidiosis, aren’t things, you know, you can just look up on Google. So I really appreciate you sharing those tidbits, your your tried methods that really work at helping, chicks get started and thrive. So with that, for folks that wanna learn more from you, and about this topic, because we’re right in the heat of it. Right?
Glenda Pereira: 35:35
Mhmm. People purchasing chicks right now. Be sure to reach out to extension.farmcast@maine.edu. And in addition, if you have questions, topics, suggestions, comments for the podcast, you can email us there too. So, Colt, thanks so much, and we look forward to more chicken tending.
Glenda Pereira: 35:56
Absolutely.
In complying with the letter and spirit of applicable laws and pursuing its own goals of diversity, the University of Maine System does not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender, gender identity or expression, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, familial status, ancestry, age, disability physical or mental, genetic information, or veterans or military status in employment, education, and all other programs and activities. The University provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies: Director of Equal Opportunity and Title IX Services, 5713 Chadbourne Hall, Room 412, University of Maine, Orono, ME 04469-5713, 207.581.1226, TTY 711 (Maine Relay System).