Guide · Brooding
The first six weeks
Have the brooder built and holding temperature before you come pick birds up. It's a short list of cheap things, and getting it right on day one saves you a bad week.
- Start at 95°F
- Drop 5°F a week
- 18–20% starter
- Out at 6 weeks
Before pickup
What you need in the barn
Set it all up a day early and let it run, so you find the problems while the box is still empty.
01
Brooder box
A plastic tote, stock tank, or ring of cardboard. Half a square foot per chick to start, doubling by week four.
02
Heat source
A heat plate is safer than a lamp and closer to how a hen does it. If you use a lamp, chain it up twice — never trust the clamp alone.
03
Bedding
Pine shavings. Never cedar, whose oils damage chick lungs, and never newspaper, which is slick enough to splay legs.
04
Feeder
Chick starter at 18–20% protein, free choice. Game bird feed at 24–28% for quail.
05
Waterer
Shallow, with marbles or pebbles in the trough for the first two weeks so nothing drowns.
06
Thermometer
One at chick height at the warm end. The chicks' behaviour is the real gauge, but a number helps you catch drift.
The ladder
Five degrees cooler every week
Raise the lamp, don't move the birds. By six weeks a feathered bird handles a Tennessee night on its own.
Week 1
95°F
Week 2
90°F
Week 3
85°F
Week 4
80°F
Week 5
75°F
Week 6
Ambient
Keep one warm end and one cool end so the birds can choose. A tight huddle right under the heat means too cold; birds pressed to the far walls and panting means too hot; scattered and busy means you got it right.
Week by week
How it goes
Week 1
95°F under the lamp
Set the brooder up a day early and get it stable. Keep one warm end and one cool end so the chicks can pick their own temperature — how they arrange themselves tells you more than a thermometer does.
- Huddled in a tight ball under the lamp = too cold. Pressed to the walls, panting = too hot.
- Pine shavings, never cedar (the oils damage chick lungs) and never newspaper (splayed legs).
- Dip each chick's beak in the waterer once as you move it in.
- Marbles or pebbles in the water tray stop small chicks and quail from drowning.
Weeks 2–6
Drop 5°F a week
Lower the brooder temperature about five degrees each week — raise the lamp, don't move the chicks — until you reach ambient. By six weeks a fully feathered chick handles Tennessee nights on its own.
- Chick starter at 18–20% protein, free choice, for the first eight weeks.
- Ducklings need extra niacin — a tablespoon of brewer's yeast per cup of feed.
- Never give ducklings medicated feed; they eat more and can overdose on the coccidiostat.
- Ducklings can swim early but chill fast — supervised, warm, and short only.
Moving out
Out to the coop
Fully feathered birds go to the coop, but not straight into the flock. Run them side by side behind wire for a week or two so the established birds can see them without reaching them.
- Integrate at dusk, into the coop, so everyone wakes up together.
- Extra feeders and waterers keep the new birds from being pushed off.
- Quail stay in a covered pen — they flush straight up and will be gone.
Not all the same
Where ducklings and quail differ
Ducklings
- Add niacin — a tablespoon of brewer's yeast per cup of feed — or they go weak-legged.
- Never medicated feed. They eat more than chicks and can overdose on the coccidiostat.
- They will flood the brooder. Waterer on hardware cloth over a drip tray, deeper shavings.
- Swimming only supervised, warm, and brief until they're feathered.
Quail
- Game bird starter at 24–28% protein — chick starter is too thin to get them laying at six weeks.
- They are the size of a bumblebee at hatch. Marbles in every waterer, no exceptions.
- Cover the brooder. A day-old quail can hop higher than you expect and a week-old can fly.
- Everything runs faster: they feather by three weeks and lay by six.
Still deciding what to hatch? Compare chickens, ducks, and quail.
Brooder ready?
Reserve chicks, ducklings, or quail from the next hatch and we'll walk you through the first week at pickup.