First Drink

Backyard Poultry

Finding the Water

The most important thing when you bring day-old chicks in the door is water. Chicks can live from 24-48 hours on the nutrients in the egg after they hatch. By the time they've been dried off from hatching, boxed up, mailed and/or delivered to the feed store, and picked up by you, much of that time has probably already elapsed. So getting rehydrated is a top priority. It takes a tender hand to pick up each little bird, place a finger under its "chin" and a thumb on its head, and dunk its little beak into water. Imagine doing this for a batch of 50 or 100 broiler chicks! There's no getting around it though, since chicks may not figure out for themselves where the water is, and it's not always obvious if some chicks aren't drinking.

Water Line

It's also very important to use a chick-sized waterer at this age (I have a one-quart size). This is because chicks can easily fall into a larger water trough and, unable to swim like ducklings, will drown if not caught in time. Of course, this too could be inconvenient with a large batch of chicks: having to fill half a dozen one-quart waterers twice a day!