It’s Chick Time!

Our most exciting news is that the meat chicks arrived 3 weeks ago and this week they finally transitioned from their indoor brooder to their swanky new chicken tractor.

We modeled our design on one we found on The Deliberate Agrarian. We modified his design so that you can comfortably stand in the tractor and the base of the tractor sits directly on the ground because the wheels are about one foot behind the cage with an angled edge so that they don’t make contact until you lift the front of the coop two inches.  Now the 15 chicks spend day and night in this 5’x7’ space.  We added a nipple waterer system which now gives the chicks 5 gallons of clean water at all times.  We touched a few of them to the nipples and they immediately figured it out.  I highly recommend this system.  It is so convenient.  It’s just a 5 gallon bucket and you drill three holes and insert the waterers.  There is a roost although the chicks still prefer to huddle or lounge on the grass it seems.

And now the tractor is moved once per day to give them fresh grass to eat.  Already they are eating less of the feed and choosing the grass.  As they get larger the tractor will probably need to be moved twice per day.

There are two tarps, one for each side, which provide additional predator protection at night (they are weighted by closet poles and bungeed down) as well as rain protection.  I will still be adding shade cloth to the entire top and tomorrow the Nite Predators should arrive.  I have never bothered with these on our egg layer coops as they are sealed up like Fort Knox but these meat bird tractors are not predator-proof.  If a predator wants to dig underneath he will indeed get a good meal.  However, we will often have it inside of the electric fencing for the sheep and soon the sheep will be outside overnight which will further help keep predators from hanging around.

Why aren’t the sheep outside overnight now, you ask? Because we haven’t put the permanent fencing in yet and they have a narrow passage over the bridge between two rolls of electric fencing and I worry they could get entangled overnight and no one would be around to help.  Probably unlikely but always better over-cautious with animals I say!

Elsewhere on the farm, the poultry are all getting broody.  White Girl the turkey is currently sitting on some chicken eggs.  I gave her 8 and she choose six to set on and kicked two out.  She is a bit clumsy and breaks eggs so I don’t know how many are still under her.  Sneaky the chicken has been hopping out of the chicken field to lay her white eggs in the yew hedge along the perennial flower borders.

And our olive egger (that is a chicken that lays olive-colored eggs!) from last summer has been laying her eggs underneath the huge old rose.

In the meantime, Rainbow’s plumage is finally growing back after the rough winter so hopefully by summer he will be his usual handsome self!