Moving 6.5 Week Old Marans Outside

[trumpeting_angel]

Six birds in each Eglu is still too many. Sorry you had so much trouble with the hatchery! The chicken numbers from coop manufacturers are notoriously inflated. When grown, your chickens need 4 sq. ft. each, according to what I’ve read and what people here advise. Overcrowding leads to fighting, injuries, increased risk of disease - all kinds of trouble.

 

[Mel1986]

Yes, that was my hunch. Again, we will get rid of hens until they fit comfortably, but it's impossible to know the numbers right now--exact size of adults, hens vs. roosters, etc. We haven't even assembled the Eglus yet, and anything is a step up from dog crates in the house at this point.

For reference, we wanted THREE hens and were supposed to get 10 straight-run chicks to achieve that. Instead, we were saddled with what we were told were 23 chicks--there were 24 when we got home and counted properly--because it was an "unusually successful hatch." We've spent an ungodly amount of time and money at this point, so we will never be doing this ever again. I'd start getting rid of them now, but we can't tell which ones are roosters yet.

 

[rosemarythyme]

We've spent an ungodly amount of time and money at this point, so we will never be doing this ever again. I'd start getting rid of them now, but we can't tell which ones are roosters yet.

At least black copper marans pullets should be pretty easy to sell, so hopefully you can recoup some of the money you've already spent.

Pretty amazing to end up with 24 chicks when all you wanted was 3 hens!

 

[Mel1986]

At this point, I would just about pay people to take them! I'm happy to keep however many fit comfortably in the two Eglus (and shore those up as needed--we added smaller mesh to the dog crates already) at this point, but that's it. Two hours of brooder cleaning a day and coming home from work midday to refill water is getting very old.

 

[DHEgger]

As far as the cube goes, I have 5 ee's and a sex link rooster in one with the 9' run. They love it. Now, mind you, they are only 4 months old and they do get at least an hour a day to free range so I might need to go to the 13' run but as for now, they love the cube and so do I!

 

[Willowspirit]

As pullets more will fit in your coop but as grown birds, not so much. I am housing 5 pullets in a prefab coop and they are getting on each other's nerves when they are awake. They have a run extension and when i open their door they burst out like missiles.

I think the hatchery should refund money for each chick you give away. It's not your job to raise their extra chicks!

 

[D-Bar-B]

We've had similar weather conditions, my chicks are 4 weeks old and I moved them outside two days ago. They seem to love being outside. Good luck!

 

[Mel1986]

We moved them outside this morning, and they didn't blink. For chicks that had never seen outside, they didn't seem fazed at all. It seemed cold and breezy to me, but they didn't act any differently, so I think they were comfortable.

We had only assembled one Eglu so far as we assumed they might benefit from group body heat while sleeping, but we decided to assemble the second one while they hung out in the first one and finished just before sunset. We went to put them in the cubes (I crawled around inside catching them and popping them in the coop while my husband opened and shut the coop door), and that's when we discovered that some of the clips on the run had popped off, so chicks started escaping. That was fun. We finally caught everyone (shout-out to the cat for NOT eating any) and got 12 tucked into each cube. They love the cubes and went to sleep as soon as we put them in.

They have tons of room in the cubes/runs right now, so I think they'll be okay until the age when we can return the roosters and unload the extra hens. And believe me, I do not want a feather more than what fit properly in the Eglus, and I am not buying or assembling anything else, so we will definitely be unloading. It would be simplest if we just had a ton of roosters since the hatchery will take those back, but my husband has coworkers who would take hens, so we're set either way.

Thanks again to everyone--so very helpful!