Back in 1964, I was no chicken expert, but Minnie Rose sure was! She taught me her tricks with baby chicks! How did this happen? Well, there I was on the farm. Soon we had two wonderful young children–Sara, an ever-curious three-year-old, and Alec, an energetic baby. And it seemed every time my husband–who knew much more about farming–went off on a business trip, then some baby chicks would hatch out early and leave the hen’s nest, or some baby chicks would arrive in the mail, in a box with holes, all peeping frantically. So I’d phone Minnie Rose Lovgreen. And she’d tell me her secrets. Then I’d try them–and they really worked!
Here are some of those secrets from her book — the book I later tape-recorded from Minnie’s dictation and published in 1975 – MINNIE ROSE LOVGREEN’S RECIPE FOR RAISING CHICKENS. (These secrets work either for chicks hatched out under your setting hen, or for chicks you’ve ordered in the mail.)
EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK: “It’s really better to take the first-hatched chicks into your house for a while as soon as they’ve dried off under the hen. Then the hen gives more heat and more attention to the unhatched ones. I put the chicks in a box and pin part of an old wool sweater over the box (or over part of the box) with clothespins, letting it touch their backs, but so they can still get air. The sweater feels like the warm mother sitting on them. That way they get used to the dark, and when they go back to their mother they don’t notice the change. It’s good to line the bottom of the box with newspaper for warmth, and a little shredded newspaper over that makes it like a nest. If your house is cool, you need a little more warmth. You can put the box, with the sweater over, under a light or near a heater.
Book illustration by Elizabeth Hutchison Zwick
Chicks don’t need to eat until they’re 36 hours old. But they’ll perk up faster in the house with food and water, especially water. Fill a little saucer or jar lid with water. Set a stone in it, so they don’t tip it over or get their feet too wet. If they don’t drink, you just dip their beaks in. Have the water a little warm, or at least room temperature. Dip their beaks, and if one sees the other drink, they learn from that. It’s very important they get water when they’re really young. They drink a lot.
I put the feed in a separate dish. It’s not good to let the feed get wet, so I put feed at one end of the box and water at the other. Because if the feed does get wet, and they track that around, it gives them dysentery. If they get dysentery it’s very hard to cure.…For food, give them baby chick starter mash if you have it. And there’s baby small cracked grain, chick scratch it’s called. If you don’t have those on hand, give them rolled oats or Quaker Oats and chopped hard-boiled egg. Add a few.…” (And the book contains many more of Minnie’s secrets.)
Book illustration by Elizabeth Hutchison Zwick
