I
learned many valuable lessons that first summer in the chicken
business. Some, however, were costly, as well as valuable.
Technically, in our climate, one should be able to raise three or four
batches of chickens like these before freeze-up in October. A little
math shows that one can start chicks in mid-April, butcher them at seven
weeks of age; start another about the first of June, another the first
of August, perhaps even start new batches in stages before the others
are done. In theory, that works. In actuality, working with the
facilities at hand, I found out the hard costly way that it didn’t.
South
Dakota weather can vary greatly in those first weeks of April. One day
may be warm and gentle; the next may hold drizzling rain, temperatures
in the 30’s or 40’s, even sleet and snow. Keeping new chicks in a
stable warm climate in those conditions is quite a challenge, and I
found myself raising and lowering the heat lamps repeatedly as the
chicks either clumped together (they can smother each other quickly if
this happens) or fled the heat to the outside edges of the tank. I did
have a horrible experience with one order of 260 chicks, in that I had
made them very comfortable, heat-wise, but hadn’t covered the brooder
with screen. The first day went well, but I found over half of them
dead the next morning. I had a resident mink! I mistakenly blamed the
cats, put on a new screen door, and realized my mistake when I found one
sole survivor the next morning. I had been in business but two days and
was already OUT of business! A grim lesson learned.
The
first days of June in South Dakota are usually wonderfully mild. The
new chicks came in and were immediately quite comfortable and life was
good…for a while. They flourished for about a month and then, suddenly,
the various predators with offspring of their own came to visit and, it
seemed, to teach their young the delights of killing and eating young
chickens. I raised the sides of the pen with more chicken wire, but
there is little that can keep a raccoon out if he/she has focused on a
target. Day after day, I found wings, legs, and other various parts of
my dead chickens lying all over the barn! Then the weather turned. The
temperatures were no longer mild, but soared into the mid- to high
nineties. Even with the large open doors, there was not enough air
moving to keep the 6-week-old chickens comfortable. I tried to obtain
fans that would perhaps keep them from dying from having over-heated,
but it seemed that none were actually big enough. I only managed to
save twenty-two out of over two hundred chicks. Another hard lesson
learned.
Having
discovered some costly realities, I have decided to save money, stress,
and heartache by simply bypassing those times of year that only seemed
ideal for chicken production. Since then, the chicks are ordered to
arrive at mid-July, when they actually benefit from the heat. It has
led to selling the birds at a time of year when the focus has changed to
my customers needing to fill their freezers for the winter.
Another costly part of starting any enterprise is purchasing adequate
and appropriate equipment to even start the chicks. Most of the
equipment is, of course, reusable. Good heat lamps are a must, along
with a supply of replacement bulbs. The lamp itself will cost about
$8.00; the bulbs vary according to where they are purchased. The
cheapest place I found for bulbs was Running’s, so they have kept my
business.
