Chickens are a wonderful addition to your prepping endeavor. They are easy to raise and will provide meat and eggs for your family. But how do you get started? It isn’t difficult, you just need to do a little planning, and then you will be ready to have your own flock of chickens!

Purchasing Chickens

Where do you buy chickens you may be wondering? If you are lucky enough to have a big box farm store like Murdoch’s, or The Big R you just need to wait until early spring. Around Easter every year, they will bring out the huge troughs filled with baby chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese to tempt you to buy them for your children’s Easter basket.

There is also the added benefit of being able to purchase feed and the supplies you will need in order to get your flock started easy.

If you don’t have one of these stores close by, you can even buy your chicks online. The benefit of this is you can predetermine when you want to get your chicks, and you can do some research of which chickens will work the best for you. There are many different breeds of chickens, so being able to learn about each breed is helpful before you buy them.

SPP115 Getting Started With Chickens and Supplies

Listen to this weeks show for more information about raising chicks into chickens…

How it works

You go to the online site where you want to buy your chicks, fill out the order form, and bamo! Your chickens will be delivered to you by mail! These hatcheries ship the baby chicks when they are one day old, and believe it or not, the chicks are very hardy already. We have purchased this way before, and have always had good outcomes (meaning no dead babies)

Purchasing Chickens Online:

* My Pet Chicken: [Click Here]

* Chickens for Backyards: [Click Here]

* Cackle Hatchery: [Click Here]

If you are buying the baby chicks online, you can even have your chickens vaccinated to protect them against Marek’s Disease. This is a widespread disease affecting domestic chickens in all sections of the world.  It is characterized by lesions affecting the nervous system, organs, and other tissues.  Young chickens under 16 weeks of age are most susceptible.  There is no treatment for Marek’s once the birds are infected.

Chicks must be vaccinated as close to the time of hatch as possible for the vaccine to be effective.  Vaccinating your birds for Marek’s is another appropriate step in strong poultry management.

Once you have decided you would like to have your own chickens, there are some things you will need in preparation for the arrival of your chicks.

You will need:

* A brooder (where the baby chicks will live until they go outside, (we use a clear plastic tote)

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