The other day when my (commercial chicken farmer) neighbor stopped by to buy eggs he admired my two week old chicks in their brooder on the screened front porch.
He told me at that time that he was getting ready to cull in the commercial houses any chicks that weren't growing to the standard for cornish X broilers. A few days younger than mine, but slightly larger.
He offered 25 I think. I agreed to take five! After I was out of earshot he told my DH that he should just "pinch the head off" of any of the chicks I didn't want.
Okay, so I hadn't heard back from the guy; thought he forgot about it. Just now I took the dog out the back door. He ran around the house and started barking. When I went to see what he was barking about I found two containers full of chicks!! :
Nineteen chicks in all!
Here's my current set-up. My original chicks were in their wading pool brooder, surrounded by a draft guard:
My OCs (original chicks) were jumping in and out of the wading pool, so we removed the pool the other night, added more shavings and now they have the draft guard as their brooder. They still jump in and out, but are confined on the porch and it's certainly warm enough.
Then I find these new chicks. Poor babies bellies are already burned from laying on the soiled and hot shavings of the commercial houses.
They are so sweet! Even more docile the the OCs. We put them in the wading pool from the OCs, but will move them to another larger wading pool with higher sides later on today. They'll still be confined on the screened porch even if they jump out of the pool. We have two very large dog kennels (think german shepherds) that we could confine them to; but it's very hot here. My DH says he doesn't care about a mess on the porch; it can be pressure washed later on.
Please tell me what to do about these cornish X babies! I won't kill a healthy chick that simply had the misfortune to grow too slow to meet Tyson's standards.
I posted pics of the broiler chicks here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=364872
He told me at that time that he was getting ready to cull in the commercial houses any chicks that weren't growing to the standard for cornish X broilers. A few days younger than mine, but slightly larger.
He offered 25 I think. I agreed to take five! After I was out of earshot he told my DH that he should just "pinch the head off" of any of the chicks I didn't want.
Okay, so I hadn't heard back from the guy; thought he forgot about it. Just now I took the dog out the back door. He ran around the house and started barking. When I went to see what he was barking about I found two containers full of chicks!! :
Here's my current set-up. My original chicks were in their wading pool brooder, surrounded by a draft guard:
My OCs (original chicks) were jumping in and out of the wading pool, so we removed the pool the other night, added more shavings and now they have the draft guard as their brooder. They still jump in and out, but are confined on the porch and it's certainly warm enough.
Then I find these new chicks. Poor babies bellies are already burned from laying on the soiled and hot shavings of the commercial houses.
They are so sweet! Even more docile the the OCs. We put them in the wading pool from the OCs, but will move them to another larger wading pool with higher sides later on today. They'll still be confined on the screened porch even if they jump out of the pool. We have two very large dog kennels (think german shepherds) that we could confine them to; but it's very hot here. My DH says he doesn't care about a mess on the porch; it can be pressure washed later on.
Please tell me what to do about these cornish X babies! I won't kill a healthy chick that simply had the misfortune to grow too slow to meet Tyson's standards.
I posted pics of the broiler chicks here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=364872
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