amymitchell
Chirping
- Mar 2, 2020
- 25
- 31
- 67
Hello everyone,
I live in Ohio and just gave away my older birds who had slowed down on laying. I do not have enough space to keep more than 5-6 birds happily. My question is, can I raise day old chicks through the winter. We are gone most weekends April-Oct and I don't not have anyone who can tend to them. I have the ability to keep them warm after leaving the brooder. We have a heat source and wrap the run in plastic and have had success with 2 flocks over 7-8 years. This is the first time I have had to face not being home in the spring to work with the babies. I guess if I got them the first of March they would be 6-7 weeks old when we put them out. My original thought was to raise them through the winter and they would be ready to lay come spring but... I came across an article saying this disrupts the reprodutively system to the extent of prolapse and egg binding issues. The gist was that they mature to fast. The writer of the artlicle had an elaborate chart to increase artifical light up until spring to prevent this. The article was by Gail Damerow on the feather brain web site. It seems backward to me as well as some of the others who commented on the article. I would think the darker winter days would not push them into early maturity but the artifical lighting schedule would?? Has anyone tried this? Did the ailments prvail? Is this Gail Damerow a chicken guru?
I live in Ohio and just gave away my older birds who had slowed down on laying. I do not have enough space to keep more than 5-6 birds happily. My question is, can I raise day old chicks through the winter. We are gone most weekends April-Oct and I don't not have anyone who can tend to them. I have the ability to keep them warm after leaving the brooder. We have a heat source and wrap the run in plastic and have had success with 2 flocks over 7-8 years. This is the first time I have had to face not being home in the spring to work with the babies. I guess if I got them the first of March they would be 6-7 weeks old when we put them out. My original thought was to raise them through the winter and they would be ready to lay come spring but... I came across an article saying this disrupts the reprodutively system to the extent of prolapse and egg binding issues. The gist was that they mature to fast. The writer of the artlicle had an elaborate chart to increase artifical light up until spring to prevent this. The article was by Gail Damerow on the feather brain web site. It seems backward to me as well as some of the others who commented on the article. I would think the darker winter days would not push them into early maturity but the artifical lighting schedule would?? Has anyone tried this? Did the ailments prvail? Is this Gail Damerow a chicken guru?