On Beyond Easter Peeps—

Special Delivery: 26 Newborn Spring Chicks

By Dottie Evans

When asked to answer the age-old philosophical question, Ken Hyl knows exactly which comes first –– and it’s neither the chicken nor the egg.

What comes first is a 12-inch by 12-inch, sealed and perforated cardboard box delivered by overnight Air Mail from Webster City, Iowa, to the local post office.

When Ken drove over a week ago to pick up his chicken box (by special prearrangement and a hasty phone call) the friendly postal employee who opened the door to admit him (after regular hours) was smiling broadly. He pointed to a far corner where a small brown box was heard emitting an insistent chorus of tiny peeps.

Very carefully, Ken placed the box in the back of his car and drove home where his family awaited the day-old chicks. Together, they all trooped down into the basement where Ken had set up a five-foot-wide cardboard chick corral filled with clean wood shavings. The special enclosure, warmed by an overhead heat lamp hung from a ceiling beam, would safely contain the 26 chicks until they were big enough to go outside into the coop.

(The number 26 is only an estimate. Ken soon found it was almost impossible to round up the chicks or count them once they were released and scurrying around.)

“They are supposed to all be females, but it seems we always get couple of roosters by mistake,” he remarked.

Ken Hyl has enjoyed being a backyard chicken hobbyist for many years, and he knows the drill. Spring chickens grow fast, but they won’t be mature enough to lay eggs until the fall. Meanwhile, he will have plenty to do taking care of them and monitoring their progress. He knows he might “lose a couple,” but is encouraged because this year’s batch seems promising.

Regulating their environment is the key to success.

Once a week, he will raise the heat lamp and lower the temperature in the chick corral by five degrees from the original recommended 95 degrees. By the time he gets the nursery down to 70 degrees, the lamp is turned off and the chicks will be ready to go outside. If there is an April heat wave, he will have to set up fans and open a couple of basement windows to cool things down.

“I’ve ordered five different varieties and so far, they’re doing great,” Ken said.

Matching those multicolored, hyperactive, one-day-old fluff balls coming in varying shades of yellow, brown, and smoky black with their handsome full-grown counterparts as pictured in the Murray McMurray Hatchery catalog is a challenge.

“I think the blackish ones are the Barred Rocks. Those light gold ones are probably the Buff Orpingtons. I’m guessing the darker chestnut ones are the Rhode Island Reds, and the stripy-headed brownish ones must be White Orpingtons. Or maybe they’re the Rose Comb Brown Leghorns,” he said doubtfully.

One single, top-knotted chick with buff-colored wings stands out from the crowd.

“That’s the exotic they always throw in for free. This year it’s a Golden Polish, and he — or she — is going to be a real dude — or dudette —with a big crest of head feathers.”

Ken’s work is not over once they do go outside. That is when he prepares for a whole new batch of potential issues. He has to make sure the coop is secure enough to discourage foxes and raccoons from breaking in. There is also danger from above, since he vividly remembers the year a chicken hawk swooped down and grabbed one hen right out of the enclosed pen and carried her off.

Then there is the delicate matter of interpoultry relations. If, as usually happens, there turn out to be some roosters in his little flock, they will need at least eight hens each to stay happy. That’s the ratio he says works best. It is very important for members of the flock to get along, otherwise the bigger ones begin picking on (pecking) the littler ones. But watching the little chicks grow up is worth all the fuss.

Asked if baby chickens ever sleep, Ken said yes, they just flop down midstride in the wood shavings with their wings and heads out-stretched.

“I once came down and saw them all lying there like that and I thought they were dead!” said Ken’s wife, Lori, who mostly stays out of the chick-raising process but is looking forward to fresh eggs in the fall.

If all goes according to plan, she will get her wish. Even the Golden Polish may lay a few eggs as long as it’s not a rooster.