Learning Responsibility: Baby Chicks are a Lot of Work

My responsible son is learning to be even more responsible.

He thought raising chicks would be easy. After all, he has been taking care of the neighbor's two chickens for months and all he has to do is gather eggs and make sure the water isn't frozen. Therefore, he was shocked when he got his own baby chicks.

Making sure the chicks had clean bedding was a big job. At first he tried to scoop the poop but found the bedding was saturated with small droppings throughout. Therefore, once or twice each week he changed the pine shaving.

One common problem with chicks is a condition called pasty butt. Basically, if the poo sticks to their butts instead of falling off it can make them very sick. Although it typically happens when chicks are stressed or living in overcrowded conditions, my son caught and checked each chick every morning. Since they recovered from their initial journey, they were fast and difficult to catch so this simple task took him around an hour. Not only did it take a long time, but it was difficult to identify and remember which chicks had been checked. After a few days of catching and checking chicks without any issues, he decided he would just try to look at each one as they ran around.

 Initially, there were no issues with the pine shavings. However, as the chicks got bigger, they would kick more shavings up into the air as they scratched. These flying shavings often landed in their water. My son's cute little chicks trashed their water so badly that he had to change it over five times each day.

Can you see the piece of wood under the water? The wood enabled him to go back to changing the water only once per day.


Chicks are animals, and animals tend to be dirty. They don't take care of themselves. In addition to these jobs, my son also had to keep the bathroom clean. As the chicks down turned into feathers and they grew the bathroom filled with more and more dust which required wiping down two to three times per week.

He did a wonderful job caring for the chicks and we are so proud.