Parkor Chickens

[Strong Bad]

Hi All,

My sweet Buff Orpingtons are now 8 days old. It's cuteness overload!

Yesterday I noticed the chicks flapping their wings & hopping about. The chicks were not "flying". But their wings were like mini-jet packs, leaping around the brooder.

My question: approximately how many weeks do baby chicks go from sweet slumbering babies to parkor teenagers?

Thanks In Advance!!

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Oh! I love it when they do that! They typically start flying up onto stuff as soon as they got enough flight feathers to get them higher. Mine liked to start by perching on the feeders and waterers then move onto the side of the brooder. I don’t recommend giving them actual perches until they're nine weeks of age, but if you wanted to give them flat blocks of wood or boards for them to hang out on when they're more like three weeks of age or so, that might be fun for them.

This is something I built when my flock was 6-7 weeks old:

For full parkor, on one flock I had, they were jumping between buildings at 4-6 months old. Most of the flock slowed down after they had been laying for awhile, but I still had an EE or two who’d be sure to make it over the fence, even if a trick had to be involved. (Birds in that flock had a thing for climbing up the coop's roof, turn around, fly to the roof of the nearby building (the fence was between their coop and this building that was much taller), and fly from that building's roof to the ground. And that was their well-developed, well-used escape plan.)

 

[Strong Bad]

@Lacy Duckwing that is coolest pic. You must have the happiest chickens on the block!

 

[rosemarythyme]

My question: approximately how many weeks do baby chicks go from sweet slumbering babies to parkor teenagers?

They'll be in full ping pong mode by 2 weeks or so, which is why I like to get them out of the brooder by that time. By early teens, you'll get actual flying from lighter birds, though BOs might be heavy enough by then that they won't really catch much air.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I've had a broody hen take her 2-week-old chicks to the roosts to sleep at night. Most of my broodies don't start roosting with their chicks on the roost until they are 4 or 5 weeks old but that one did. They flew up at two weeks. That's one reason the wings grow feathers faster than their bodies, so they can fly.

I've had some brooder raised chicks fly up to the roosts to sleep at night without a broody hen to lead them by 5 weeks. I can't remember the youngest my chicks fly up to the roosts to perch during the day and play. Some never do but some start pretty young.