Farming is hard sometimes things die or snails eat your seedlings, sometimes things do not germinate or the grass is slower to grow than you hope. But then magic happens on the farm and all that badness is forgotten and elation sets in. One of the things that makes farming worth while is chicks. These little balls of soft fluffy feathers with their tiny cheeps make the farm feel alive. Last year was a very unsuccessful hatching year, we attempted three hatches of 12 to 15 eggs in each hatch. We wound up with a grand total of four chicks making it to maturity and each one was a rooster! Each time I tried to hatch last year I bought eggs. I wanted breeds that would lay beautiful colored eggs and have lovely fun plumage. While, those roosters did turn out lovely I was disappointment. I spent time and money on eggs, not to mention some mental ups and downs, only to wind up with four roosters.
After all that drama I decided to just bite the bullet and hatch our own eggs. Surprise we had a very successful hatch! 13 chicks of various colors were born. I have no idea who the baby daddy is (we have 6 roosters all together) or what color their eggs will turn out and I do not care. I have chicks and I did not spend money on eggs to be disappointed at awful hatch rates. I set the eggs in week 39 and candled them in week 40. Only 3 were not viable which was a really good start.
So cozy 
A bakers dozen
Clearly, I was very aware of the impending hatch and yet I failed to ensure I was prepared for when they hatched. I did not have food for them but I managed to grab things I had on hand grind them up and make enough food to get us to the feed store. When chicks are little they generally eat a chick starter feed. It is more crumbly and usually is medicated to help prevent Coccidiosis. I try and stay away from medication for a number of reasons, so I buy meat bird crumble which provides a high amount of protein (which they need) without the medication. It is not necessary to separate chicks if they have a mama hen looking out for them but I usually do for about three weeks. This makes it easier to give them constant access to food and lets them get a little bigger. Hopefully preventing them from escaping the chicken run that despite my best efforts is not chick proof. Few things are baby animal proof in my experience.
