I get my day old chicks from Murray McMurray in Iowa. I have never tried another source, mainly because I have been exceedingly happy with the quality of their chicks and the service I get from M.M. At this hatchery chicks are shipped on Saturday morning. Mostly my shipments have arrived at the Prescott post office that same night. The friendly postal folks call me first thing Sunday morning and I go home the happy owner of a batch of chicks. Even the few times where my chicks did not arrive till Monday, they were still healthy if not quite so happy. I order my chicks for the last weekend in March. This allows them to start laying before the next winter but they are not so old that they go through their first molt that year. (Molting hens are poor layers)

I have an 8x4 chicken house and a slightly larger fully enclosed outside run. The house has a human sized door with a small closable chicken sized door in the corner. All fencing runs a foot along the ground on the outside to prevent diggers from making their way into the cage. Likewise the overhead is covered to prevent climbers from entering. So far this has been successful.

To get the house ready for a new batch of chicks I sterilize it with a solution of bleach and water and let it freeze over for a couple of weeks.

Since it is still pretty cold up here in the mountains of Arizona that time of year, heat is of essence once the chicks arrive. I insulate the walls on the inside to a hights of about 1 foot with sheets of straw to prevent cold and drafts. Likewise I cover the floor with about a foot of straw. Two red heat lamps are suspended from the ceiling to warm the inside of the "ring" formed by the straw. I am careful to measure the temperature pretty exact for a few days before the arrival of the chicks. You want 100 degrees on the ground. As the chicks age, I raise the lamps gradually to reduce the warmth on the ground by 5 to 10 degrees a week, depending on the weather.

Together with my chicks I order a package of Chick Start, a chicken vitamin and mineral supplement to be mixed with their drinking water. I don't know if it really helps, but I have always used it, my chickens have always been exceedingly healthy, so why mess with success.

The last thing a chick does before hatching is to ingest the last of the egg yolk. This allows the chick to travel for up to 2 days without the need for food or water. Upon unpacking I dip each chick's beak into the drinking water. That gives them the idea of "drinking". For the first couple of days I cover the ground with newspaper and put plenty of Chick Start on top in addition to full feeders. I takes them about a day to figure out what is food. Gradually I remove the paper, leaving them with lots of feeders. They will sleep in them, bathe in them, but they also got the idea, that that is where the food is.

Daily I also put some clumps of fresh grass into the ring, to give them something to do other than peck on each other. I have never had a pecking problem, so I stick with the grass. meanwhile keep a close eye on the temperature. If it's too hot all the chicks will be plastered long the walls - too cold and they will cluster under the lights. Also one or two little souls will get lost somewhere, no matter how careful you are to make the straw ring as fool proof as possible. So I constantly count heads (not as easy as it sounds) and come to the rescue. I never lost anyone permanently.

By now the straw inside the house is at least one foot deep. I keep it that way. I work to achieve the same depth in the outside run. The deeper the straw, the cleaner the chickens. Manure gets constantly turned in and stays dry and relative odorless without excessive flies. Once a month I clean most of the outdoor run out, move same of the used straw from inside the house to the outside and put fresh straw inside. The used straw from outside has been scratched into inch long pieces, ideal mulch for the garden.

I have two hanging feeders and two dishpan water tubs, one each in and outside. I feed Chick Start until the first eggs arrive, then I switch to Lay Pellets. Water is replaced every other day, since filthy water makes bad tasting eggs. During the frost season it's a little more work to keep water available all the time.

When days get shorter than 14 hours, your chicken will greatly reduce their egg output. I have a light on a timer inside the house that keeps my chickens on 16 hour days. Instead of 10 eggs from 12 hens, I get 9 in the winter, but without the light the drop would be more significant. My hens have a large community nest. Chickens like to lay their eggs where others have already laid theirs -apparently a sign of a good location for the job. I even keep a brown wooden egg in the box, this way they get the idea from the start. The nest box is accessible from outside the chicken house, and I keep it well filled with fresh straw for clean eggs.

I always buy my chicks sexed. The extra expense is worth it, so I don't end up with a bunch of roosters, they don't make good eating. For meat I buy specific meat birds. I replace my hens every other year. I probably should stew the old hens, but I don't have the heart to knock them off at the end of their hard working careers as layers. So I have a "retirement coop". That's where my egg profits go. I have some healthy 8 year olds in there, eating their way through some serious food.

I could go on writing about chicken until your eyes fall shut. (You might have nodded off already.) I would be happy to respond to any email questions. Check your local library for useful books, they are all useful in some way, really. My favorite is "The Family Poultry Flock" by Lee Schwanz.