Easter Chicks Appropriate for Those Who Prepare First

You've read all the warnings about giving cute, cuddly animals such as baby chicks as Easter presents, but for families who are planning to raise backyard chickens, Easter is in fact the perfect time of year to get started. I purchased my first set of chicks in April a few years ago and have hatched my own chicks every spring since.

Before anyone decides to bring home Easter chicks, however, adults in the family should do some basic research on the risks and rewards of backyard chicken keeping.

What You Need to Know Before Buying Easter Chicks

Parents in particular should be aware that poultry can carry zoonotic diseases. In fact, the CDC says Easter chicks are a bad idea. Baby chicks should only be handled by young children with close adult supervision. After handling them, children must immediately wash their hands thoroughly to prevent the possibility of transferring any harmful germs to their mouths, noses or eyes where they can take hold and cause serious illness. Baby chicks are fuzzy little germ factories, so even with these precautions, handling should be kept to a minimum.

Understand also that baby chicks are only cute and fuzzy for one to two weeks after hatching, before the fuzz is replaced with patchy feathers. As adults, chickens are not house pets. They cannot be housebroken. They can still, however, be rewarding for children mature enough to know the difference between farm animals and pets. With time and proper care, a backyard flock can produce eggs and meat for your family, as well as extra eggs to sell.

Caring for Your Easter Chicks

Baby chicks cannot survive without assistance. Although they can eat and drink independently if food and water are provided, they must be kept very warm. For the first week after hatching, baby chicks require an ambient temperature of 100 degrees. The temperature can be lowered by 5 degrees each week thereafter until they are fully feathered. That means they need to stay in a confined space with a heat lamp, and you'll need a thermometer to monitor the temperature. Most people keep chicks indoors in a large covered enclosure, like a rabbit cage, until they no longer require auxiliary heat. Chicks can get out of almost any open-topped box or enclosure.

(Read more about the basic requirements for backyard chickens here .)

Getting Eggs from Your Backyard Flock

Unfortunately, most chicks at farm stores are sold as "straight run." That means the store doesn't know if the chicks are boys or girls. If you can, pay a little extra for chicks that have been separated by sex, so you can be reasonably sure of getting hens.

Female chickens hatched around Easter will be old enough to start laying eggs after five months--around the end of September, give or take. Some breeds start laying sooner, while others may take longer to mature. Hatching in the spring gives hens time to mature and start producing before winter sets in.

If you're not going to hatch more chickens from your own eggs , you do not need a rooster. Hens will lay eggs without one. Roosters can also be aggressive as they have been bred to protect the hens from any threats to the best of their ability. Small flocks should not have more than one rooster, even if you plan to hatch eggs.

While baby chicks should not be purchased as house pets, or pets of any kind for very young children, Easter is a good time to get started with backyard chickens for families who are prepared for the long-term task of raising them. Within several months of Easter, you can begin enjoying fresh eggs from your own happy, healthy hens.

Brad Sylvester raises chickens for eggs, meat, and profit on his backyard farm in the mountains of New Hampshire. His humanely managed flock includes 38 chickens of various breeds, as well as several bronze turkeys.