Part of a young bird's development occurs inside the egg, and part of it occurs outside, after the chick has hatched. Different species of birds go through these two stages at different rates. Many groups of arctic birds, such as waterfowl and shorebirds, have precocial young, which complete most of their development inside the egg. Precocial young are covered in warm fuzz and can walk or swim and often feed themselves within hours of hatching. Other birds, particularly the "perching birds" such as pipits and buntings, have altricial young. These chicks hatch with their eyes closed, completely naked and helpless. They must be tended constantly by their parents for approximately two weeks.

Breeding in the Arctic has to be done in a hurry, because the summer is extremely short. The faster young can develop, the better. Although altricial hatchlings must be carefully fed, protected and kept warm, these chicks take much less time overall to develop than precocial young. Young snow buntings, for example, are fully grown and independent only 4 weeks after the eggs are laid, while the precocial young of semipalmated sandpipers, which are approximately the same size, take six weeks from egg laying to fledging.

Rapid development allows birds to mate, lay eggs, rear offspring and leave again in a very short window of time. This strategy is particularly important to the small arctic land birds, which cannot store enough food to survive periods of scarcity in the early spring or late fall. Although precocial birds take slightly longer overall to develop, these birds have a distinct advantage: they make better use of available food resources. These active chicks can scatter from the nest and search for food separately, so they don't compete with each other in the same small area – an advantage on the tundra, where food is more thinly distributed. Because they are fuzzy and can run away, they are also more able to escape predators, and less likely to get cold than naked hatchlings.