Scratch4Food
Hatching
- May 18, 2015
- 2
- 0
- 7
Hi everyone! I'm a newbie to raising chickens and rather than ease in, I decided to jump in with both feet. We got 37 chicks in the mail just last Wednesday -- 11 Buff Orpington cockerels and 26 Silver Laced Wyandotte pullets -- from Mt. Healthy Hatchery. All the chicks arrived healthy and are absolutely thriving so far. My mom is keeping an eye on them during the brooder stage -- we have 3 cardboard boxes connected with small "doorways" at her house -- and then we will begin tractoring them at my house a few miles away once they're ready to be outside (and I have the tractors built). I'm raising them along the lines of Geoff Lawton's "Chicken Tractor on Steroids" -- using them to help make 1 CY of high-quality compost per week, subsisting largely from the food scraps and worms and bugs that proliferate the compost piles.
But right now, I'm just having too much fun watching their antics. All we have to do is drop a few mealworms down into their brooder, and step back and watch the chaos that unfolds.
If anyone out there has any experience paddock-shifting birds with electronet and/or raising them primarily on food scraps and compost forage, I'd appreciate any lessons you've learned in the process. Thanks!
But right now, I'm just having too much fun watching their antics. All we have to do is drop a few mealworms down into their brooder, and step back and watch the chaos that unfolds.
If anyone out there has any experience paddock-shifting birds with electronet and/or raising them primarily on food scraps and compost forage, I'd appreciate any lessons you've learned in the process. Thanks!