Am I crazy

[Belletower]

Thanks, guys!!! I've never been a by the book kind of gal! Even with my first baby, I was just appalled by all the musts and must-nots. By baby number four, you'd think I was raising up some kind of other animal . I've just never been a blind follower of recommendations. Still, that tractor supply lady kind of shook me up ... She said she'd been raising chickens for ten years! Plus, she was really nice so I think she meant well and was trying to help me avoid disaster.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Thanks, guys!!! I've never been a by the book kind of gal! Even with my first baby, I was just appalled by all the musts and must-nots. By baby number four, you'd think I was raising up some kind of other animal

. I've just never been a blind follower of recommendations. Still, that tractor supply lady kind of shook me up ... She said she'd been raising chickens for ten years! Plus, she was really nice so I think she meant well and was trying to help me avoid disaster.

Which really just goes back to what's been said in that everyone finds their own way of doing it that works for them/their birds - doesn't make her way or your way any more or less right.

 

[Melissa F]

I was also wondering if I am crazy. I moved our meat peeps and 4 bantams out of the basement brooder at about a week old into the grow out pen in the barn with a light over it. I noticed after a few days they didn't seem to care about the light one way or another, so I turned it off. Yesterday, at 2.5 weeks old I moved the pen into the yard and put an old truck bed cover over the end for shade. Before bed I completely covered it with the truck cover and that was that. I woke up in the middle of the night to a thunderstorm and was a little worried, but this morning all birds were happy.

 

[Belletower]

An update ... My little birds are just like big ones already! They turned four weeks two days ago. I have six in my flock and they go into their roosting house at night (no actual roosting yet, though. I think they're too small to hop up?). I let them out in the early morning and watch them meet the day with chicken joy . They flap and flutter, range through my garden as a group. I leave then out all day long, visiting periodically to deliver treats or just spying on their antics.

I am so proud. Perhaps my girls are the smartest chickens around to be so responsible so young . Under a light in a box until x weeks? BAH!!!!!

 

[CollegeChicken]

After much soul searching I decided my chickens would rather have a life of freedom with some risk than a life of containment with no danger. I live in NJ and have about 2 acres of property. We have racoons, possums, foxes and coyotes etc...in five years of having chickens I have only lost two to predators and hawks were actually the culprit. The chickens get locked up at night and let out during the day. People have the right to decide what they let their pets do and not do. Some of us are more capable of making intelligent decisions than others. I dont see anything wrong with what youre doing considering you understand the risk.