I have always kept feed down 24/7 and when I went to bed, they had plenty. When I saw them first thing, they had eaten almost every crumb, so they just jumped onto that feed like they hadn't had any for two days.
Today, I did some work on the broody pen, which is a smaller pen inside the shed that houses the nursery coop. The broody cage/pen is about 5x3.5 with a wooden ceiling about 4 ft high, whereas their brooder was maybe 2x3 only 1.5' deep. They now have the huge galvanized feeder and the gallon waterer and a little roost we made a long time ago that sits on the floor made from a wooden towel rack. They found that feed first thing and hopefully were more normal in their eating this time. When I went out to check on them, four BR chicks were on the little roost. They have a 250 watt red heatlamp and a 150 watt red reptile heat lamp on one wall, so they can get in or out of the heat. I think 20 chicks were just getting too big for the brooder at 3 weeks old. Now they have plenty of room to play and spar and do whatever they want.
I moved Hawkeye in with the chicks, who will be gone tomorrow or Sunday, depending on the weather. Then Hawkeye will share with three older chicks till Kate gets her Ameraucana pullet next weekend.
