Chicken room

[JValera]

Hi Guys and ladies

I will have 200 chicks ( hen layers ) that I want to put them on a room 15 feet large by 8 feet wide

my question is :

How many weeks ... Can I leave them on this room ?

also , I have a big room or Greenhouse ..... 64 feets large by 32 feets wide

later ,, I will have to transfer all them to the this big room ??? or I will have to transfer first all them on a chicken tractor

For example : First I will have to put 25 chicks on each chicken tractor ( Total 8 chicken tractor )

How many weeks, I will have to leave them on each chicken tractor before to transfer to the Greenhouse or big room ??

thank you so much

Merry Chritsmas --Jorge

 

[Ridgerunner]

Jorge, what kind of climate and weather are you dealing with? That would have a bearing on my decision. You don’t have to do any one thing, there are many options that can work.

You might follow the link in my signature to see what I think is important as far as room for chickens. I don’t give you hard and fast numbers, more of things to consider. A lot of what you do will depend on how you manage them. And most of that article is on adult chickens, not chicks, but some will apply to your situation.

With that many female chicks I’d feel quite comfortable leaving them in a room that size until they were 5 to 6 weeks old at least. They might be OK longer. One thing I’ve found is that the more chickens you have the less room per chicken you need. I cover that in my article. I’ve raised broods of chickens that were mostly female and broods that were mostly male. Females don’t need as much room as males per chick, even that young. There are too many variables to give absolute hard and fast numbers.

If you have a heat source in the greenhouse and can keep from cooking the chicks in there and you don’t have any adult chickens out there, you could just start them in the greenhouse. If I could that’s what I’d do and skip all that other stuff. I don’t know how you plan to provide heat to that many chicks, a “hover” would be my suggestion. It’s basically a shallow box open at the bottom that will trap heat underneath. I don’t have any good links for you but do some research. It was a recommended way during WWII to efficiently raise large numbers of chicks like yours.

I don’t know how you eventually plan to manage them when they are laying, will they be in the tractors or the greenhouse? If it is your greenhouse, why do you need tractors? If it is tractors and your weather conditions are right, they can go straight to the tractors and not use the greenhouse at all. Even in cooler weather (around freezing or above) I regularly move my chicks to an unheated grow-out coop at five weeks of age.

To me it seems as if you have a lot of options but I don’t know enough of your unique situation to get much more specific. Good luck!