...which is slightly higher in protein than regular chicken feed, and slightly softer, but not by much.
It is available at any rural Co-Op or Farm & Feed Supply.
They are surprisingly capable on day one. They can find the food & water, and know how to "peck" and "scratch" (for finding food).
They know to move closer to the heat lamp if they are cold, or move away from it if they are too warm.
We keep our bathroom very warm in the Early Spring (80+ degrees) to germinate the seeds for our Veggies and help the young seedlings, but the chicks like it even hotter, like 90 - 95 degrees for the first week, so we add a heat lamp to their box to keep them warm. We have a small plastic wading pool that we transfer them to when they need more room.
Last year, one of our hens hatched out some chicks for us,
so we didn't have any baby chicks our bathroom.
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We started keeping chickens in the Spring of 2007 after we moved here from Minneapolis.
At that time, we saw them as a good source of natural, non toxic food.
We were quickly surprised by how smart, clean, and social these beautiful birds are.
The have individual personalities, and have become a daily source of entertainment and wonder.
We let our Free Range in the afternoons, and I am still amazed every evening watching them "Come Home to Roost". They file into the coop and jump up on their roosting bars in a definite social order and arrangement understood only by them, but if one of them tries to make any changes, the whole flock will voice their displeasure.
The younger chickens have to earn their spot on The Roost,
which makes for some interesting times ("squabbling"
in the coop in Mid-Summer when the new birds are old enough to fly up to the roosting bars and make their spot.
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