Chick Season is Here

 

Source: Fossil Rim Media Library

The first few chicks of the 2022 season have hatched and are preparing to enter the first round of outside pens. Every day, I help prepare diets, carefully observe the eating behavior of each chick, and record this information until the chicks have 'graduated' into a less meticulous feeding regimen. After about a week, the healthy chicks do not need to be encouraged to eat or drink, scampering about the enclosure quickly to scoop up salad, mealworms, and wet crumble with speed.

The youngest chicks must be fed four times a day. I base my days around these feeding times, working as fast as I can on other tasks so that by the designated time I'm ready to provide nourishment to the precious but precocial little ones. When I go to feed and water the captive breeding flock of adults, I now look at them in a different light, realizing that the tiny birds I present mealworms to will become finely feathered adults one day, booming on the coastal prairie and having nests of their own one day.

From 7:30 AM until 5:30 PM, I'm completely focused on feeding the birds, preparing for the next feeding, and working as efficiently as I can. Sometimes I am required to return back before sunset in order to do a final 'night check' on the chicks. I make sure that every chick has enough food and water for the night, and that the temperature of their enclosure is not too low or high.

Our chicks here at Fossil Rim will be heading to their native coastal prairie habitat by July. I can't wait for the birds I helped prosper to enter their native habitat and hopefully bolster the wild population.