what do baby chicks eat

Babies just do better when raised by their mothers. We saw that the first time we let a dairy cow raise her own baby; that calf, rocketing around the pasture at three days old, made a deep impression on us. With chickens, we notice how quickly a hen-raised chick begins feathing out, and how seldom we lose a chick to sickness. But what is most noteworthy is how a mother hen teaches her babies to eat what she does. Chicks from the hatchery or from the incubator must be fed a commercially compounded mash, but these babies learn to eat fermented whole grains from day one. Saves time, saves money, and lets us feed even newly hatched chicks from our known, local food sources.

This hen was brooding eleven eggs from our Black Australorp and Rhode Island Red breeding stock, and brought off ten chicks, all thriving. She nested in the box of our small broody tractor, and it will be interesting to see how they break down, hen birds vs. cock birds, since warmer temperatures favor roosters, and cooler temps favor females. Come to think of it, she must have maintained just about a perfect temperature, since almost every egg hatched.