How to Rear Broiler Chicks

You can rear your broiler chickens at home and raise them to be large healthy birds. Broiler chickens are raised and bred as meat animals. Fertilized chicken eggs will take 21 days to incubate and hatch. About 50 percent to 75 percent of fertilized eggs will produce baby chicks. It will take your broiler chicks 20 weeks to get to their adult weight and be ready for eating. During this time you will need to provide daily care to keep them healthy.

Things You'll Need

  • Incubator
  • Thermometer
  • Hygrometer
  • Lysol cleaner
  • Chicken house with ventilation
  • Wood shavings
  • Molasses
  • Chick waterer
  • Chicken feed
  • Two heat lamps
  • Two extension cords
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Instructions

    • 1

      Plug in your incubator and set its temperature to 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Use a thermometer to monitor the temperature and a hygrometer to measure the humidity, which needs to be 50 percent for the first 18 days that the broiler eggs are in it and 70 percent to 80 percent humidity for the final three days for a total of 21 days.

    • 2

      Mark the eggs with a "T" for top and a "B" for bottom with a felt-tipped pen so that you can keep track of the sides as you turn them. Gently turn the eggs over three times a day for 21 days. Transfer the chicks to their housing 24 hours after they have hatched.

    • 3

      Clean and sterilize all equipment and housing that you are going to use with your chicks three to four days before you expect your chicks. Place Lysol in a water spray bottle, and add hot water to it. Mist the entire area that your chicks are going to live in. Turn on the heat lamps two days before your chicks will arrive. This will allow the floors and walls of the brooding house to heat up and the disinfectant to dry.

    • 4

      Set up a cardboard wall that is 2-feet high if you are going to place the chicks in a large chicken house or a barn. Make curved corners, or round them out to prevent the chicks from huddling in a square corner and smothering each other. Cover the floor with a 1-inch layer of wood shavings. Lay an old blanket or sheet over the shavings to prevent the chicks from eating the wood shavings. Remove the blanket after your chicks have been fed for three days, as this will give them enough time to learn what is food, and what is not. Add more wood shavings when they get dirty.

    • 5

      Make sugar water for the chicks to drink for their first two days by adding 1 tbsp. molasses to 1 gallon of water and put it into a chick waterer. After two days, give them regular, clean water. Change the water daily.

    • 6

      Place crumbled feed on the shipping box lids and put the chicks on the box. They will peck at the ground near their feet and soon learn what their feed is. Feed the chicks crumbs for four weeks, and then slowly start to mix in pellets. When they reach 18 weeks, gradually change over to layers' pellets, which will help the chickens lay their eggs. Refill the feeder twice a day.

    • 7

      Monitor your chicks. Keep them warm by using two heat lamps plugged into extension cords and hung from the ceiling, 24-inches above the floor. Move your feed or water away from the heat lamps. Place a thermometer into the chicken house or barn, low on the wall near the floor and the lamps to ensure that the temperature stays constant at 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Every week, reduce the amount of heat by 5 degrees Fahrenheit by raising the lamps 2 inches above them, until you get down to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Once you reach this temperature, you can stop using the heat lamps.