First Chicks of 2026 arrive and venture out

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It used to be that I didn't order my first chicks of the season until late April to be sure most of our cold cold weather was out of the way. Baby chicks don't like the cold! This year I've moved to ordering them just a couple of weeks earlier as it seems to be that bit warmer these past couple of years. Regardless the chicks are put under heat lamps.

When the chicks arrive they are just a day old, so tiny and so delicate. Fluffy little yellow balls. The chicks I'm talking about are being reared for meat. At present I don't buy chicks in destined to become part iof my laying flock. Every spring I buy in around 200 day old chicks, the first of 2, 3 or possibly 4 batches for the year depending on how many I want to rear that year.

The chicks don't actually arrive at the farm but I meet the hatchery along one of thier regular delivery routes and they have about an hour journey before ariving home. If you've never sat in a car with 200 chicks, I must tell you, it is noisy! They are safe and warm in thier small transport boxes but they are already looking for food and water. When a baby chick needs or wants something it will tell you, and 200 chirping chicks at a time means the journey home is never peaceful.

Once we arrive it's straight into the brooder which is already set up and warmed for thier arrival. The chicks are fast and sprint around darting from one side of the brooder to the other, stopping when they come across food and water. After a good 30 minutes when everyone has had their fill they all settle down where it's warm and fall asleep.

It doesn't take long before these birds start to grow, within 2 days there is a noticeable difference and by 4 weeks old they have nearly fully feathered up and are ready to be moved into their pasture based coops. The heat lamps are gradually turned down and off to aclimatise the chicks but at a good time when outdoor temperatures are heating up. During the first four weeks they are first fed chick crumb, a small little crumb pellet suitable for their small size before gradually transitioning to a bigger sized pellet between week 3 and 4.

I specifically use a slower growing breed of chicken, still bred to be a meat bird so worthwhile eating but takes twice as long as the frankin chickens you might have heard about that dominate supermarket shelves and restaurants. Those chickens are reared for just 5 or 6 weeks before going to the abattoir whereas these slower growing birds I rear for a minimum of 10 weeks. The slower growing breed really does do an awful lot for the chicken in terms of welfare, they don't grow so fast their bodies can't keep up, they don't loose mobility and they don't suffer heart problems. Giving them healthy bodies which are active and mobile throughout the 10 weeks they live on the farm.

Moving the chicks out to the pasture isn't a quick job. Electric netting needs to be laid out and set up, coops moved and feeders and drinkers all set out. By 4 weeks old as you can imagine the chicks have some speed about them. Luckily I've caught enough chickens to be an expert chicken catcher so the job is fairly calm but the work is heavy and like all chicken jobs you'd be lucky to get away without getting dirty.

It's a little daunting for the chicks at first, the big wide world, lots to be catious about but within no time they will have settled in.