Raising Chicks
by Trudy Goodstein
When COVID first started, the restaurant where I’d worked for two years closed indefinitely. Suddenly unemployed, I moved back in with my parents. It was a chaotic and exciting time because, soon after I moved back in, we all moved up to Mendocino County to a property with plenty of outdoor space and a lot of trees. When I was in elementary school, one of my parents’ favorite things about the home where we lived was our chickens, and every morning my brother and I would go out and gather the eggs for breakfast. So it was natural that finding and caring for a new flock of chicks became my responsibility when we moved to Anderson Valley.
Online research led me to Alchemist Farm & Garden, a solar powered family farm in Sebastopol that humanely raises all sorts of bird breeds—even quail! I ordered a mystery box of 10 chicks that would be selected for me based on my preferences and the heat/cold situation at our house. When the day came to pick them up, my mom and I took a drive down to the farm. The chicks were all very cute and in perfect health.
At home, I had set up a re-purposed dog crate with chicken wire around the edges, a heat lamp attached to the top, and pine shavings and containers for their food and water inside. When we brought the chicks home, I took each one and dipped their beaks into the water container until they started to drink, then into the food so that they would know it was there, and then I let them go free into the crate. I kept a close eye on them for the first few hours so I knew that they had figured out where everything was and that they were all right. After that, I checked in on them several times a day to marvel at their cuteness and to refill their food and water.
When chicks are young, they are very susceptible to cold, so they need to be kept dry and warm. For the first week, I made sure the temperature in the crate stayed at around 95°F, dropping it to 90°F the next week, and then another five degrees every week after that. After about six weeks of taking care of them in the dog crate, they were all fully feathered and ready to venture outdoors. But there was just one problem: we didn’t have a place to put them yet, because the permanent chicken coop wasn’t ready. So I repurposed our screened-in porch by spreading hay over the floor and placing their crate in the middle. I placed bigger food and water containers for them on the ground outside of their crate, then opened the door so that they could explore at their own pace.
After a few hours, they were walking around and seemed to enjoy their new space. They were considerably bigger now, and they looked a bit scraggly as their full feathers continued to grow in. As they became more comfortable, they began to test out their wings and fly onto various low surfaces. (Though chickens can’t fly like other birds, they can fly for short distances.) At this age, they are almost continuously eating and growing, so they poop a lot. Everything was now a target for becoming a perch and getting pooped on, so I made sure to remove anything that we valued off of the porch. I made sure to clean the porch thoroughly at least once a week, which meant changing the hay, scrubbing the food and water containers out, and getting the dried poop off of any surfaces. It took a while, but it was important because chickens can get stinky very quickly, and they were so close to the house. I did my best to minimize the stink, but of course there was still some smell—that’s just what happens when you have chickens.
When the permanent outdoor chicken coop was ready, I began the process of moving them all over. It was a bit tricky, because in order to transfer them, I had to catch each chicken and carry it to the new coop. When I catch a chicken, I make sure to place my hands over their wings, rather than just around their body, so the wings can’t flap in my face. Having another person or two helping definitely speeds up this process.
Once the chicken wrangling was done, they were all safe in their new house, and I hopefully will not have to move them again. They were about ¾ size then compared to now, and by that time you could more easily tell which ones were roosters (when they are babies they look like identical fluffballs). At this adolescent stage, roosters can be distinguished by their size and comb (the red waggly bit on top of their heads). Their comb is significantly bigger than the hens, as is their waddle (the red bit attached to their throats). They are also much bigger than their hen counterparts, and most are brightly colored.
My morning routine now includes caring for the chickens before I go to work. I give them any kitchen scraps that have accumulated from the day before, check and refill their food, clean and refill their water, and collect any eggs. As long as the eggs are checked daily and not allowed to reach 99°F, they will not form an embryo. It’s been fun to see the fluffy chicks grow into full grown chickens, and to trade kitchen scraps for beautiful, fresh eggs.
Check your local farm supply in springtime to buy chicks locally.
Trudy Goodstein has been working in the food industry since 2018. She attended culinary school in San Francisco and worked at the Michelin star restaurant Octavia until it shut down due to COVID. Today she works at Petit Teton Farm doing canning and jam making, and she loves working with animals and food and living in the hills above Anderson Valley.