Mama Heating Pad in the Brooder (Picture Heavy) - UPDATE

[Coop de Grass]

Agree with Aart. Further comment: IMO, the sooner you integrate them, the better. Give the littles plenty of space where they can duck out of sight, but not be cornered. Fortunately, often when a chick is being pursued, the pursuit is forgotten the minute chick gets out of sight. Give them lots of entertainment while working on integration. (clumps of sod, scatter goodies in their bedding, multi level perching opportunities) Start by putting one or two of the bigs in with the littles... so the bigs are outnumbered and in unfamiliar space. Keep rotating bigs into play time with littles until they've all had a turn. This way you can observe to see if there are any bigs with bullying tendencies. Then, let them share space together. If you can set up a little play pen/run outside and start integration there, that will be best. When they're busy foraging and exploring, they're too busy to bully.

I am going to try to integrate my new batch of chicks earlier. They are now 1 week old and they will be going outside sometime this week.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that there should be no places where a chick can be cornered. I had this happen with my 5 week olds and luckily I was right there to rescue the one under attack. I have a 4 foot fence that has little doors at the bottom. The 13 week olds fly up onto the roof of the grow out coop, but they have integrated well with the younger chicks. Interesting because they know their status with the big hens. Looks like the little guys will know their status with the teenagers! Hopefully it will continue down the line, but I will take my time introducing the new babies.

I'm beginning to think I need to stop hatching eggs!

 

[Victoria-nola]

My 10 beautiful chicks are now 1 week old. They work on the seeds in the hay all day every day, since the first day they were out there (2.5 days old). I gave them chick grit right away as a result. The instructions on the bag say to start chicks at 2 weeks on grit, but the Scratch n Peck brand feed says from day 1, people here say day 1, and 2 weeks would only really work in traditional/conventional settings where the chicks are indoors and humans are controlling everything they have access to peck at. Every single aspect of raising chickens has so many possible answers.

So my question is, is it safe to give them a chunk of sod now? If that's not cool yet, what about other foods they could have besides the starter mash and the hayseeds they are scratching up?

The last couple of days they petition to get out of their brooder when I open the door to maintain the space and check on them-- they leap down 7" or more. They are so fearless! Oh, and, I've seen a couple of the hens just standing and gazing at them (from a polite distance). To me it feels like the hens are welcoming the littles. I continue to be quite certain that whatever I am giving up in easy-access Chicken-TV and spending time with the chicks is more than made up for in the release of fears around the chicks' introduction to the flock. (Now my biggest worry is what to do with the cockerels.)

 

[lazy gardener]

I like to give my chicks sod just as soon as they are eating their crumble well. Really, there's no reason to not provide it just as soon as they start eating. As far as introducing them to the flock... there are a lot of issues specific to each flock. I had a mean bird so had to delay until they were a bit older. As long as their heat needs are being met, you can do it when it makes sense to you in your particular circumstances. Azygous provides a "panic room" with a entrance small enough that the little ones can come and go, but the big ones can't enter. Put their heating pad in there, and you should be good to go. The biggest issue related to early introduction would be if the littles are safe in your run situation? Is the wire mesh small enough that they can't get through it or get stuck in it? Could an aerial predator fly in and carry them off? (this includes: crows, hawks, blue jays, and not winged but certainly a threat: snakes, rats, and squirrels.)

 

[Blooie]

I like to give my chicks sod just as soon as they are eating their crumble well. Really, there's no reason to not provide it just as soon as they start eating. As far as introducing them to the flock... there are a lot of issues specific to each flock. I had a mean bird so had to delay until they were a bit older. As long as their heat needs are being met, you can do it when it makes sense to you in your particular circumstances. Azygous provides a "panic room" with a entrance small enough that the little ones can come and go, but the big ones can't enter. Put their heating pad in there, and you should be good to go. The biggest issue related to early introduction would be if the littles are safe in your run situation? Is the wire mesh small enough that they can't get through it or get stuck in it? Could an aerial predator fly in and carry them off? (this includes: crows, hawks, blue jays, and not winged but certainly a threat: snakes, rats, and squirrels.)

x2 Perfect answer!

 

[Victoria-nola]

I like to give my chicks sod just as soon as they are eating their crumble well. Really, there's no reason to not provide it just as soon as they start eating. As far as introducing them to the flock... there are a lot of issues specific to each flock. I had a mean bird so had to delay until they were a bit older. As long as their heat needs are being met, you can do it when it makes sense to you in your particular circumstances. Azygous provides a "panic room" with a entrance small enough that the little ones can come and go, but the big ones can't enter. Put their heating pad in there, and you should be good to go. The biggest issue related to early introduction would be if the littles are safe in your run situation? Is the wire mesh small enough that they can't get through it or get stuck in it? Could an aerial predator fly in and carry them off? (this includes: crows, hawks, blue jays, and not winged but certainly a threat: snakes, rats, and squirrels.)

Thank you. I will give them sod.

Also thanks for picking up on my need to work on safety. I had been thinking of overhead safety from hawks but not about crows and jays who can swoop in under the tree cover or barn overhang.


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The problem is that we don't have a run-- we have the coop that is strong and locked up at night, and then they have free range around the curtilege of the house. The photo is of our old barn, there are 3 stalls, the chickens are on the left, and it's all closed in with hardware cloth buried around the floor perimeter and up the walls to the roof, but there is an open space at the roof that a weasel could come through, so we still need to put in a HC ceiling. We have one of the auto chicken pop doors. We've only been here 5 months and the adults have been safe. At the risk of overwhelming with a long-winded post, I'll go ahead and send the following:

My plan originally was that they would be allowed to venture into the coop itself at 2 weeks (while being able to run back into the brooder through portals) and I had expected that the littles wouldn't be able to get out the pop door right away and that they'd spend a couple more weeks inside the main coop. Now I realize that the step up to the pop door from inside the coop will not present much of an impediment for very long. Outside the pop door there is a very large overhang of the barn roof and also heavy tree/leaf cover (big oak trees), and a cattle-panel fenced in area that's mainly to keep our 2 pet pigs away from the coop/food area. The chicks could easily wander out the cattle panels and be very vulnerable so I had already planned to attach to it a 3/4"-openings plastic poultry fence that will definitely keep the chicks from wandering into the woods.

Then on the barnyard side, there is a portal that the adult chickens use which I don't know how to fix yet except to confine them. And in fact snakes, rats and squirrels currently could get in the coop during the day when the pop door is open and I have the brooder set up to resist such predators but a determined one could cause harm. But also the rooster keeps an eye on the food/coop.

I expect that the littles will stick close to the adults once they are outside, whenever that turns out to be (and I'm rethinking a lot here). My adult chickens (all 3-4 years old) are extremely savvy about how they move around the property and when the sun is out they stay in shaded areas and actually run if they go between shady spots. The rooster is always on the lookout, herding for safety, and now all the trees are leafed out and there is a lot of cover, and we have had no losses in the 5 months we've been here on the farm. So I believe that they will be teaching the littles all this. It's just that there are other predators that aren't much threat to the adults and I'm sweating it on this. btw my adults are 9 EE hens and 1 blue Ameracauna rooster, the 10 littles are eggs from these chickens.

But yes, now I realize we probably have to construct a run. It's just that the adults are not going to want to stay confined and that would seem contradictory to the goal of easeful integration.

 

[lazy gardener]

Or, you could go the other route, and hope for the best. Many folks free range, and let the chicks go where they will. Along with that comes increased risk. You could go an other year or more before having predator losses, or you could have a fox or stray dog wipe out your chicks in one day. It's all a matter of risk tolerance.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

I free range. I take a few steps to ensure they are somewhat protected:. I have two fantastic dogs that ignore the birds but protect their territory, well established trees, plenty of areas to run for cover. I have lost 2 adult birds to predators, one I suspect a hawk the other was the neighbors dog.
I do appreciate the risk, but I feel the benefits outweigh the risks

 

[aart]

Also thanks for picking up on my need to work on safety. I had been thinking of overhead safety from hawks but not about crows and jays who can swoop in under the tree cover or barn overhang.


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Man, that is a HUGE overhang........may be an optical illusion, but I don't see anything supporting it....except the horizontals at the eaves?

 

[Victoria-nola]

Or, you could go the other route, and hope for the best. Many folks free range, and let the chicks go where they will. Along with that comes increased risk. You could go an other year or more before having predator losses, or you could have a fox or stray dog wipe out your chicks in one day. It's all a matter of risk tolerance.

Well seing's how several of the chicks already have names and all the adults have names, I'm probably not ideal for risk tolerance. We do have a curtilage fence all the way around the house and barn but it's cattle panels. So our cats can get in and out and I'm sure a fox could, but most dogs can't get in. The chickens venture out briefly (to get to the other side) from time to time but the rooster can't get out and he gets very irritated when they go.

Thank you very much helping me think about this. I've gone to a lot of trouble for these chicks and need to make sure of our choices.

 

[Victoria-nola]

Quote:

Also thanks for picking up on my need to work on safety. I had been thinking of overhead safety from hawks but not about crows and jays who can swoop in under the tree cover or barn overhang.


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Man, that is a HUGE overhang........may be an optical illusion, but I don't see anything supporting it....except the horizontals at the eaves?

heh. We've had a lot to contend with but yes, we need to get better support on this, it's on the list. This barn used to be more than twice this size until a tree fell on it. Apparently the farmer's family (the farmer was retired or passed on by then) just sort of tore it down to where it's just these 3 stalls left, with this big overhang. It's all built from recycled railroad boxcar sidings-- the main industry in this town for decades was the Illinois Central railroad boxcar refurbishment plant and there were summer layoffs every year so a lot of people had other jobs, like farming. The house and outbuildings are also built with this wood-- the best in the land it all was. You can see the lettering (upside down) on the beam up there in this next photo: