My son's year 1 class had eggs hatch this last week, and somehow the kids have bamboozled me into bringing 4 of the chicks home. We have been given no instruction other than keep a light over them for the next couple of weeks (they are 7-10 days old now).

I've ordered Jackie French Chook Book from the book store, I've been to the library and picked up the 2 books they had about poultry sitting on the shelf, and I've been tot he produse store and got chick crumb/mash. The chicks are in a cardboard box with torn newspaper on the bottom, water and crumb/food stuff. Ex-hubby is lined up to make a chicken tractor from the plans in a recent Gardening Australia magazine this weekend.

The books don't have a lot of info about week old chicks. How long to they need to stay inside in cardboard box with light? When can they start having 'other' food? When can they start having table scraps (meat etc? I'm assuming that's harder for them to digest?) Can they eat left over vegemite/jam/peanut butter sandwiches from the kids lunch boxes (we have multigrain bread)? Is there anything they can't eat? Are things like tomato and rhubarb leaves poisonous to them? Are there any weeds etc I might have in my typical Brisbane backyard that would kill them?

I'm hoping to eventually let them free range in the back yard, and just lock them up at night - but I need to know what's dangerous for them first.

That is assuming they are not all roosters!!

so - any advice (from first hand experience, rather than what I'll get reading books) gratefully accepted!

Would you believe mine love the green tops from the radish's, and they fight of a morning over the tomato scraps and capscium seeds they also get a little meat or fat, and hubby is always digging up the garden looking for lawn grubs which they adore.

Very important they need to be wormed every six weeks, you just put it in their drinking water, if you have more than one vessel then tip the others out.

The weather will have a lot to do with how long they stay in the box and for putting them outside.The days are getting warmer so that would be ok but not the nights. I got hubby to make a covered type of cage and they stayed in that while small and were put back in the box in the night in the laundry.

Do not put them out when they are too young as Hawks may get them, and try and have something outside for them that they can run under in case of danger. About the other food introduce it and if they eat it fine not too much junk though, after all they are chooks, and I dont really feel vegemite and jam sandwiches are on their menu, the crusts perhaps. They will soon work it out.

Tomato and Rhubarb leaves? if they are free range they will work it out once again, but I would not give it them, dont forget the shell grit have a little there for them because even though they are free range sometimes they cannot get enough calcium especially if they are feed a lot of table scraps. Hopes this helps. Cheers..MM.

Anyway, they were in a box with newspapers, drinking water, chick mash, a perch (make a hole on both sides of box and push through a little stick. Big/small enough for little chick legs to grab it. We even made a little ramp for them to walk up to the stick. Might be overdoing things a bit, though.)

We also put a thermometer inside to monitor the temperature under the light. Can't remember what the temperature had to be, but you could check on the internet. Or your reference material. We switched off the light at night and covered the box with a blanket. The warmth was kept in and they got used to night and day.

We kept them like that for a week (or two?). Then we made them a little run outside. In some grassy area with some dirt patches. This way they got used to a fluctuation in temperatures and the outside world. They still came inside at night. We kept feeding them the chick mash, bits of bread, crumbled up chook food. When they were about 2 weeks we experimented with kitchen scraps and little pieces of meat.

After 3 or 4 weeks they got cheeky (and bigger) and they kept jumping out of the box. They stayed outside in the run most of the day, too.

I think they were about 4 weeks or slightly more (not much more) and we put them in the chook shed. Separate from the others. The chook shed is divided by wire so that they could see their new mates but were protected from them. Just in case. However I must add that this was at the beginning of summer, so the temperatures were pleasant enough for them. I think if it had been winter we would have had to keep them in a more controlled (temperature-wise) environment for a bit longer.

Food-wise they'll learn very quickly. I wouldn't give them anything cooked. Kitchen scraps such as carrot peelings, cut off bit of broccoli, bits of meat fat (no chicken!), all supplemented with chick mash, maybe a bit of oats, crushed lupins, etc.... When they are very small, soak the dry grains in a bit of water.

They are currently asleep in a cardboard box next to me in the computer room, with a desk lamp over them. Though one of the little black ones can jump nearly 30cm already, so they'll get moved into a bigger box in the next day or so.

I've 'salvaged' some star pickets and orange builders mesh from the dump in front of the house being built across the road. The mesh is 1m high, so if I make them a small (1m sq) enclosure - or a long thin one - that should keep hawks out. Yard is fenced, which will keep dogs out. Will keep a watch for cats - but I'll only have them out when I'm home, so I'll be able to keep an ear out.

Two of the chicks have diarrohea this morning (the two yellow ones, which are bigger than the two black ones). I'm assuming it's either the change in feed, or stress - I was worried about them being too hot under the lamp last night and moved it further away, so they may have ended up being a little chilled this morning. They all seem bright and happy and eating and drinking, so I'll just keep them warm and see how they go. It's overcast and a bit windy today, so I won't take them outside.

thanks again!

The last of my three needed a real henny mother; when offered a treat, she would jump on my lap and spend ages wiping her beak in disgust.

spatz - haha about spices on the veg - my 4 kids won't eat their dinner if there is tomato sauce sitting on the table, let alone anything more 'exotic'

adamus - I'll keep the nasturtium leaves in mind. that is assuming they stay alive long enough to grow feathers and move outside. my 12yo daughter keeps fussing over them - she spends every available minute with them. They keep getting diarrohea, and I'm assuming its from their food, because she keeps giving them 'treats' - yesterday it was half a red capsicum, which they ate a surprising amount of. I got really angry and yelled at her tonight - told her they had to have 48 hours with nothing but their chicken crumble stuff to see if their diarrohea stopped, or I was taking them back to school for someone else to have. Talk about killing them with kindness!

My chooks have always got all kitchen scraps except egg shells. Everything including meat, chicken, spices, peanut paste, vegemite, cooked, uncooked, everything. You may have to chop up some stuff up for their little beaks and you may have to rake out the scraps from their run at the end of the week. It's mixed with manure and goes straight into the compost. You get better laying habits if you have laying pellets always available and throw some shell grit in as well. Give them an occasional ticket of leave in your garden for a nourishing feed on various invertebrates. It keeps a lid on your slater populations too. I wouldn't worry about poisonous weeds.

Keep your kids playing with them and they will always stay tame. It was a childhood chore of mine to feed the chooks and clean their run. Apart from being slightly dim, they are very endearing and some of my most memorable pets have been chooks.

How's the runny poo situation?

They had a big day today - went to kindy, got photographed with 20 kindy kids. Then they spent the rest of the day in their new play pen I made for them in the backyard (in the orange builders mesh and star pickets I've recyucled from the building site across the road!) They had a ball. Complained loud and long when we brought the back inside in their little box!

I'm wondering if you can predict male/roosters from behaviour this young? they all love the extra room they get outside in their playpen - but one of their favourite games is running towards each other, wings flapping, and then colliding mid air breast to breast. I'm wondering if this is just play, or dominant behaviour? all 4 seem to do it, but there is one that initiates it most of the time - this one is bigger than the others, and right from the first night we got them, this one has slept on his own - the others pile on top of each other like puppies.

I'm not really expecting an answer - just in my mind I've got this one pegged as a rooster purely based on his behaviour - will be interesting to see if I'm right!

my daughter, thwarted by my prohibition on her feeding them treats, spent 3 hours today making them a 'home'. this involved 3 cardboard boxes (the ones that reams of paper come in)with doors, windows, sun roofs etc cut into them, many silk flowers (so they can't eat them mum), handfulls of cut grass (so they have something to play in - they like getting into a pile of grass and spreading it around), and modifications to the chinese take away container that was holding their chicken crumble (so they can't stand in it and poo).

Yep. I want to come back as one of my daughters chickens.

the chicks change names daily. today they are KFC, Nuggets, Dumplings and StirFry. but don't worry - if they all turn out to be roosters, we will NOT be eating them - the produce man has promised to find them good homes for me!

And the nice guy at the produce store is going to find homes for my " Trixie" she is a white Sussex and a shocking layer as is "Speckles" a grey who is always broody they are very pretty chooks but no good in the laying department. Poor Hubby does not want to do that terrible thing to them as they have been our pets for over two years. And you get so attached to them so I understand how your children feel.Keep up the good work and I am enjoying this thread..Cheers..MM.

adamus - funny you should mention that!! As we speak, my daughter has her best freind over for a sleep over (school holidays here). The 2 girls are in the backyard taking the chicks "for a walk". They have taken the chicks out of their run, and are shepherding them around the backyard, moving them from spot to spot using a combination of human-sheep dog style tactics, and carrot and stick tactics ( i.e. one girl drops yellow and orange petals off my last flowering marigolds in front of them, while the other walks behind, keeping them in a group). This has kept the girls (12 years old, mind you) busy for 2 hours.

And has kept me in hysterics, when all 4 chicks fee to separate compass points!!!

so, she is now converting a huge box left over from moving (t-chest size). This has so far taken 50 minutes of DISCUSSION - if I lay the box on its side.... and cut flaps like this? or like that? and should I put their water here? or there? and will 2 roosts be enough? I could go to the park and find 5 more branches and stagger them so they has something to play on (till I pointed out she was in effect building them a ladder to climb out of their new, higher, box!) and so on, and so forth, till I could just about SCREAM!

I am totally over chickens. My daughter has done nothing except fluff about with them for the whole week (school holidays). Yesterday, she and her friend had at least one tucked up their t-shirts all day. There is chicken poop in strange corners of my house.... how does that happen, when they are outside during the day, and in a box in the laundry at night? There is chicken mash all over the kitchen floor (and how does that happen, when the chicken mash container is kept in the laundry?). And why is my daughter STILL washing her hands in the kitchen sink after playing with them, when I spent the first week reminding her nicely, and the last week yelling at her nastily, to wash her hands in the laundry, NOT in the kitchen where our food is? And they are now nearly 4 weeks old, so in that really bedraggled half down, half feather, messy looking state. And every morning when I walk into the laundry, the stink is atrocious - so I'm really dreading a hot Qld summer, whith these babies in my back yard!

Can't wait for them to get their feathers in, so they can stay outside overnight!

speaking of which - how does everyone keep the rats/mice away?

what is your mum-to-be's name? she is so cute!

drill? you mean as in the silent, old fashioned, hand variety? so I can skulk along the fence line in the wee small hours and do my dirty deeds unnoticed? could we do a package deal - poodle pup AND drill??

We have our "" ***** Hilton "" up off the ground one brick high and hubby puts rat sack in a small quiche dish (high sides) under there, pushes it in about half way, and there is no way the chooks can get to it they are too big, he checks it every morning and we have caught plenty that way. he only puts its under there when he sees evidence of mice around, plus we have a few kookaburra's that seem to like the gum tree the ***** Hilton sits under, so I would not be suprised if they have got a few too.Cheers..MM.

Hi HJ I like your poodle I have never had one but I do know they are very intelligent dogs. Great Pic.

week old chicks are cute balls of fluff. three and a half week old chicks are straggly, unattractive, and STUPID

Yes, I have watched Love Actually. I think I have watched everything with Colin Firth from my local video shop. Also everything like Officer and a Gentleman, Ghost, Dirty Dancing, Bridget Jones, Sleepless in Seattle...... umm, I'm on a bit of a chick-flick-feel-good-sob-fest at the moment!! We finally separated 'officially' in March, so it's been 6 months. I'm just starting to nag him about the custody and property settlements now - bit difficult, because he refuses to talk to me if I bring it up.

This is the man who only earnt $15,000 last year, only pays me $20.67 per MONTH maintenance, we have 4 kids...... yet 2 weeks ago, he drove up in a Mini!!!!! He is self employed - can't afford to pay me, but his 'company' can afford to lease a Mini! And that is before we get to the part that a Mini only seats the driver and 3 passengers - so he can't take all 4 kids for access visits at the same time!

ARRRGGGHHHH!

But - thankyou once again for making me smile - I REALLY appreciate that!

How many chickens do you have? What sorts? I don't know what ours are - 2 yellow chicks and 2 black chicks from the hatching at school - very technical! And the way my luck is going - they'll all be roosters. But we are committed now - we've built the bestest chook tractor ever (cost me less than $20 from Bunnings - got lots of roofing iron, timber etc from the scrap heap in the building site across the road - so I'm very pleased with myself). So if they all end up being roosters, I'll go buy a few silkies, or pretty bantams, to look beautiful in my backyard!

Do poodles really make good chook wranglers? That must be funny to watch. Our babies have been in their chook tractor for a week now, and the last 3 days we have let them out in the afternoon. The first 2 days they stayed right next to their house, and put themselves back in after about 10 minutes (so we rushed and put their evening chook crumble in, and went "chookchookchook" - pretending we were teaching them the routine lol). Then last night when they were out, we moved their chook tractor from one end of the yard to the other. They didn't realise at first - my youngest son (4yo) was still with them - but when he started walking across the yard to get to us (about 25m) they just RAN after him - it looked so funny - Pied Piper of Chickens. Then they got sidetracked by a very nice daisy growing about 1m from their front door, and we were starting to get worried we would never get them all back inside. And even though they are just 5 weeks - they can get themselves to the top of the trampoline, so I was worried if we had to chase any, they might even make it over our 1.5m high timber fences. They are still growing their feathers (moth eaten straggly things they look at the moment lol)- seems a bit mean to cut them off one wing already!