First time raising meat birds - my journey of raising Cornish X in the city

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

By yesterday evening there was what looked like blood in the sick bird's vomit. He still hadn't pooped. Unfortunately we did have the cull the little guy. RIP!

Luckily, the rest of my birds seem to be doing well. I'll be doing their 3-week weigh in tomorrow.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

WEEKLY WEIGH-IN: 3 WEEKS OLD

Alright, this week I unfortunately lost one of my Cornish X due to illness. The rest still seem healthy though, and the weights seemed on track. Here are their weights at 3 weeks old:

1 lb. 15 oz.
1 lb. 14 oz.
1 lb. 13 oz.
1 lb. 12.9 oz.
1 lb. 12.1 oz.
1 lb. 11.4 oz.

Average weight = 1 lb. 13 oz.

Does this seem like a pretty good weight for 3 weeks?

Should be getting these guys outside in the tractor this week, but it has been cool so I'm still weaning them off the light.

 

[Sussex19]

I'm sorry you lost one.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

I'm sorry you lost one.

Thank you.

Yeah he honestly went downhill so fast. It was a surprise because they were doing so well. But hey, just hoping the other 6 remain healthy.

 

[Morrigan]

They look like a nice size. I think they are going to enjoy the move to the tractor.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

It's about 70 degrees today and will be about 65 tomorrow so the meat birds are out in the tractor for good! I am gonna make a "snuggle box" as one of you suggested, as our nighttime temps this weekend are forecasted to be about 45 degrees. But otherwise, they seem super happy! They were lost and confused at first when I put them in, but once they found they new feeder they were like okay cool

I know my tractor isn't the greatest, and I think opening and closing the doors will be tedious. I'm somewhat regretting not just building more of a Salatin-style tractor. But hey, it's what I've got and I barely spent money on it. I also was able to make some upgrades to it for free. Some of you suggested adding hardware cloth instead of chicken wire. I'm on a budget and didn't want to drop all that money, but I did find some small pieces of hardware cloth in my garage (thanks previous homeowner!!!). I secured the panels all around the walls and doors about a foot up, which should add a little more predator-proofing. I also made a skirt around the tractor out of some leftover chicken wire.

Let me know if you guys think I need anything else! I'm a little nervous for their first night out but I think I've secured things pretty well. Here in the city, our main predators are raccoons and possums.

 

[3KillerBs]

I secured the panels all around the walls and doors about a foot up, which should add a little more predator-proofing.

That will help.

One of the more horrific predator attacks is when raccoons reach their grabby, little hands through the wires and pull their victim through piece by piece.

 

[Morrigan]

The chicks look healthy and happy. I do have some concerns over the predator proofing if you know you have active raccoons in your yard. Raccoons are very clever and dexterous animals. There are numerous reports on this forum of raccoons who reach their arms through chicken wire to grab and kill chickens. So, unfortunately it is as much about preventing reaching in, as opposed to keeping an entire animal out.

Was the hardware cloth you put around 1/4 inch? If so, that will help some. If there is any way to get some more of hardware cloth, that really is the very best thing. If not, maybe you could add a second layer of overlapping chicken wire to reduce hole size, or even add some tarping to the inside of the structure (inside so that can't so easily reach under or rip it to the side.

Don't mean to alarm you, but speaking as someone who lost a half of flock to a bobcat a few years ago, predator attacks are a rotten thing to go through. The more troubleshooting you can do ahead of time, the better.

 

[Morrigan]

That will help.

One of the more horrific predator attacks is when raccoons reach their grabby, little hands through the wires and pull their victim through piece by piece.

Nice short way of saying what I was trying to say!

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

That will help.

One of the more horrific predator attacks is when raccoons reach their grabby, little hands through the wires and pull their victim through piece by piece.

The chicks look healthy and happy. I do have some concerns over the predator proofing if you know you have active raccoons in your yard. Raccoons are very clever and dexterous animals. There are numerous reports on this forum of raccoons who reach their arms through chicken wire to grab and kill chickens. So, unfortunately it is as much about preventing reaching in, as opposed to keeping an entire animal out.

Was the hardware cloth you put around 1/4 inch? If so, that will help some. If there is any way to get some more of hardware cloth, that really is the very best thing. If not, maybe you could add a second layer of overlapping chicken wire to reduce hole size, or even add some tarping to the inside of the structure (inside so that can't so easily reach under or rip it to the side.

Don't mean to alarm you, but speaking as someone who lost a half of flock to a bobcat a few years ago, predator attacks are a rotten thing to go through. The more troubleshooting you can do ahead of time, the better.

Hey I appreciate the honesty from you both! My thought with the 1' hardware cloth around the whole thing was to keep those grabbing hands out. There really isn't much left of the tractor that doesn't have the HC on it because most is covered by the tarp.

@Morrigan How do you go about securing tarp on the inside of a coop like this? As you can tell, I'm not the most handy LOL, so I'm blanking on how I could secure that to the wire.

Edit: Also, I will stop by the hardware store as soon as I can and see if I can get a small amount of HC.