What to do with child chicks after Easter is a yearly query as spring brings child chicks and Easter…and typically, the 2 flip up collectively. Though many breeders and farm-supply shops halt the acquisition of peeps simply earlier than the spring holidays, not everybody respects the philosophy that chicks—and ducklings and child bunnies—are not items to be given on Easter.

Because of this, there are at all times well-meaning kin who arrive for Easter brunch with a basket of peeping child poultry in tow. 

Ought to a kind-hearted however misguided soul current your loved ones with a present of Easter chicks, comply with these 5 steps to make sure these infants’ well being and well-being. 

1. Shelter 

Lively infants want a secure place to roam and name house, even briefly. Discover a big cardboard field, a storage tote or a high-sided basket to function a brooder. Line the underside with an previous towel or rags. When you’ve got pine shavings or straw, use these.

By no means use newsprint, as its slick floor can result in leg growth points. Place this makeshift brooder within the warmest, least drafty a part of your home. When you’ve got a transportable heater of any kind, set it as shut as potential to the brooder, since new child chicks require a relentless temperature of 95°F their first week.

Make sure to hold your pets away from the brooder.  

Learn extra: Try these brooder ideas for child chicks!

2. Nourishment 

Use your most shallow saucer to supply the chicks water. Use pea gravel or marbles within the dish to assist stop unintended drownings. As for meals, mash-up unseasoned hard-boiled eggs and serve them in a shallow container.

Newly hatched chicks can go as much as two to a few days with out consuming, however older chicks would require meals a few occasions per day. Finely chopped oatmeal could be combined in with the mashed egg to increase the meals.  

3. Rehoming 

If you’re unable or unwilling to maintain the chicks, you’ll want to seek out them a brand new house as swiftly as potential to keep away from the expense of outfitting a correct brooder. In case your neighborhood or city has a neighborhood bulletin board—precise or digital—publish in regards to the chicks there and embody a photograph.

Contact your native feed store or farm provide retailer to see if they will suggest close by farms that is perhaps fascinated with adopting the chicks. Petting farms and animal sanctuaries are different choices to contemplate. Verify with your pals, too. You by no means know if a number of of them is perhaps eager about beginning a yard flock.  

Learn extra: Right here’s how one can heat your child chicks with out utilizing warmth lamps.

5. When All Choices Fail 

If you happen to can’t discover anybody to undertake your Easter chicks, don’t despair. Name your native Humane Society. Some places will soak up chicks. Others could have a database of organizations, farms and people who can settle for the birds.

You may additionally take into account taking a protracted drive round your closest rural or agricultural areas, in search of small farms with Contemporary Eggs indicators. Strategy these flock house owners and clarify your state of affairs. With luck, your chicks could have a brand new house quickly.  

6. Your Personal Microflock 

The reward of yard chicks is perhaps fortuitous for those who already hold chickens or are beginning a flock of your individual. You’ll nonetheless have to outfit a brooder appropriately on your Easter peeps, however the time and power you’ll have spent looking for them a house can now be spent on elevating your little ones and watching them develop. 

This text about what to do with chicks after easter was written for Chickens journal on-line. Click on right here to subscribe.