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Garden Betty

here's your guide to raising healthy baby chicks 🐥


This time of year when I visit the local feed store with my kids, they immediately make a beeline to the baby chick area. It inevitably results in many oohs and ahhs and endless begging to bring home "just one more" baby chick. 😍

We're maxed out right now with 9 chickens at home, but I promised I'd think about it for next year (or after we get around to building a bigger coop).

Secretly, I'm taking notes on the breeds of chickens I want next. 😆 (And also sketching out potential new coop designs.)

If you're looking to add to your flock this season, I've got a guide that walks you through the process of raising healthy baby chicks from Day 1—from helping them build their immunity naturally to keeping their development at a more gradual pace.

I answer common questions in that post like:

  • Medicated or unmedicated feed?
  • When can baby chicks go outside?
  • When can baby chicks stay outside all night?
  • How do you introduce new chickens to an existing flock?

Everything is based on my personal experiences of raising several rounds of baby chicks over the last decade, with photos of my actual setup and flocks.

If you want reliable info that doesn't come from ChatGPT, bookmark this guide. 😄

The Simplest Way to Ferment Chicken Feed (and Why You Should Start Doing This)

How to Get Dark Orange Yolks From Your Backyard Chickens

The Safest Way to Introduce New Chickens to Your Flock

9 Ways to Predator-Proof a Chicken Coop and Chicken Run

How to Stop a Broody Hen: 5 Humane Ways That Work

Why Chickens Go Broody—and What To Do About It

P.S. If you're looking to add to your flock this season, here's exactly how you can raise healthy baby chicks at home.

Garden Betty

For people who want to grow more food with less work. 🌱 This is my weekly newsletter loved by 38,000+ subscribers—here's what one of them had to say: "These are not the regular run-of-the-mill garden-based emails. You actually touch on more unusual tidbits that encourage me to keep growing and learning."

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