Road Trip vs. Shipping Day Old Chickcs

[3riverschick]

Interesting. How to kill Kudzu with helium.

http://discover.uga.edu/index.php?/article/sus16-kudzu
What have you tried to kill your Kudzu with? Is there any residual poison which will harm the birds if they eat it?
Best,
Karen

 

[MegC]

We haven't used any poison. We have spent hours and hours and hours digging up the roots and cutting them. And it keeps coming back! I'm completely against using any type of poison on anything in or around my home. My husband sometimes gets frustrated because I won't even let him use commercial fertilizer on new grass... Soon we'll have plenty of good fertilizer!
Thank you for including that article. Very interesting! Kudzu is pretty nutritious, so I'm sure our future birds will love it!

 

[3riverschick]

We haven't used any poison. We have spent hours and hours and hours digging up the roots and cutting them. And it keeps coming back! I'm completely against using any type of poison on anything in or around my home. My husband sometimes gets frustrated because I won't even let him use commercial fertilizer on new grass... Soon we'll have plenty of good fertilizer!
Thank you for including that article. Very interesting! Kudzu is pretty nutritious, so I'm sure our future birds will love it!

great! I agree. No poison ever on our lot either. Yes, it looks like real good food for the birds. Pick a breed which is known for active foraging so you get the most help for your buck. I was just worried the birds might eat some residual poison. But great news there is no poison.
Best,
Karen

 

[Chicken girl 15]

@3riverschick where abouts in PA are you? I'm in NY and run a smallish poultry farm with my kids.

 

[lazy gardener]

The biggest negative I can think of to your plan is this: chicks create a LOT of dander. It is a super fine oily dust that permeates all surfaces, including vertical ones. They also can be smelly, though that is far less of a problem, especially if you put them on fermented feed. I have asthma and have vowed that aside from the first 24 - 48 hour start up after hatch, I'll never have chicks in my home again. If you have the option of brooding them in your basement, or even in a garage, or can make an outdoor brooder for them which you can provide with electricity, I'd say go for it. The biggest issue might be if you are subject to frequent winter power outages. Also look into this: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/yes-you-certainly-can-brood-chicks-outdoors

IMO, heating pad brooding is the only way to go! Your chicks will need a lot of space, IMO, at least 1 s.f./chick for the first couple of weeks, and then 2 s.f. through week 5. By the time they are 5 weeks old they should be fully feathered, and ready for outside temps if they have been properly acclimated, and have a secure draft free area. Again MHP brooding makes it super easy to acclimate them to outside temps.

Other topics for you to consider while doing your homework: Fermented feed, deep litter management in the coop and the run. Building your own coop, or retrofitting a pre-built shed will give you a better coop and more bang for your buck than buying one of the small pre-fab doll house coops. Those are greatly misrepresented, poorly designed, and almost always do not meet the needs of the birds, or the owners. If you are not able to get a "forever coop" built before you need it, think multi-purpose, and build a brooder that can be repurposed as a tractor in the summer months.

Check out Henderson's chicken breeds chart.

For the travel, you can use the HP that you buy for their brooder, along with a converter (12V to AC) that plugs into your cigarette lighter if you want to provide them with extra heat. But, if you keep your car warm enough that you don't need to wear a jacket while traveling, they should be fine in their shipping box until you get them home. After all, when they are shipped from the hatchery, they survive without any extra heat b/c of the box design and the shared body heat. If it were me, I'd do the heating pad. Always good to have one of those converters on hand anyways!

 

[3riverschick]

@3riverschick where abouts in PA are you? I'm in NY and run a smallish poultry farm with my kids.

Hi Chicken girl,
I am in Ligonier in western PA 15658. If I had my Chanteclers now, for the 1st time in years, I would not be sweating this polar vortex at all. The birds would just have a simple coop and play in the snow. No heating or anything. They might stay out of the wind. Next winter is gonna be so great. No heating, no worrying about the cold. All I need to do is just provide a wading pool with some frozen gallons of water in it in the summer to help keep them cool.
Best,
Karen

 

[MegC]

Thank you for all of the great advice... As I've been reading over the forums on BYC over the past couple of days, we've revised our plan. The chicks are going to stay in our basement, and move out to the coop as soon as they can. I didn't realize just how much dander and mess they could create. My husband has allergies, and actually one of my dogs (my best buddy!) has severe allergies. I didn't completely factor the dander in, so thank you.
We've also scrapped the pre-fab coop, well kind of. We decided to order from a local chicken keeper/carpenter. He makes amazing coops with great craftsmanship, good reviews, and as a plus, we'll be supporting someone local instead of a manufacturer. He said it's very easy to put wheels on it to make it into a tractor, which is what we want to do.
I was looking into the heating pad method, and I just purchased the heating pad that she recommended on the MHP thread. What is an inexpensive material to use to make the "cave" shape to drape the heating pad over? Also, do you think using the press and seal over the heating pad is actually safe? Safety is definitely my priority!
Also, I read over some of the fermented feed forum, and am intrigued, but also a little worried about it getting moldy. I'll have to read over that a little more.
I have one of those car charger converters that I could use. My car also has the luxury of heated front seats, which I could also use for the drive.

Thanks again for the response and thoughtful advice.

 

[lazy gardener]

Thank you for all of the great advice... As I've been reading over the forums on BYC over the past couple of days, we've revised our plan. The chicks are going to stay in our basement, and move out to the coop as soon as they can. I didn't realize just how much dander and mess they could create. My husband has allergies, and actually one of my dogs (my best buddy!) has severe allergies. I didn't completely factor the dander in, so thank you.
We've also scrapped the pre-fab coop, well kind of. We decided to order from a local chicken keeper/carpenter. He makes amazing coops with great craftsmanship, good reviews, and as a plus, we'll be supporting someone local instead of a manufacturer. He said it's very easy to put wheels on it to make it into a tractor, which is what we want to do.
I was looking into the heating pad method, and I just purchased the heating pad that she recommended on the MHP thread. What is an inexpensive material to use to make the "cave" shape to drape the heating pad over? Also, do you think using the press and seal over the heating pad is actually safe? Safety is definitely my priority!
Also, I read over some of the fermented feed forum, and am intrigued, but also a little worried about it getting moldy. I'll have to read over that a little more.
I have one of those car charger converters that I could use. My car also has the luxury of heated front seats, which I could also use for the drive.

Thanks again for the response and thoughtful advice.

Do you have any wire fencing laying around? Something stiffer than chicken wire? You could use that. If you don't have any of that, you can cut a tomato cage open, flatten it out to the right height, and wrap some chicken wire over it. Cover all rough edges with tape. (I like duct tape for this) THEN, (and I consider this to be the most important part of the process) either lay your HP over the frame, or attach it to the underside, (I put my frame OVER the HP.) and put the whole works in a pillow case, or other fabric wrapping that completely encases the frame and the HP. I made some custom pillow cases to tightly fit both of my MHP. Cut a hole for the cord, and wrap tape tightly around the whole pillow case/frame package. This keeps the fabric from ballooning down under the frame. I've found that painters tape adheres nicely to the fabric and does not come loose. I tried electrical tape for this once, and it did come loose, entrapping a chick in the tape. The more she struggled, the more stuck she got. Ever hear the story of Bre'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby? Well, I should have named her Tar Baby. I never would have found her without my frequent checks under MHP to check for any problem chicks. I do use electrical tape to tape the connection where the cord attaches to the pad. I've had issues with that working loose in the past. I'll be going into my 3rd season using the same frames, and they hold up wonderfully. Back to the press and seal: folks use it without any problem, and I've used it, and will probably continue to use it. I wrap the whole frame/pillow case with it, then lay a scrap of terry cloth over the top. If you don't want to use it, you could use a plastic place mat cut to size, or some shelf liner and tape that down to the top of the frame. Just be sure that what ever you use can not come loose to allow a chick to squirm her way between the two. They do seek out dark little cubbies.

 

[3riverschick]

you don't need fermented food. you have enough on your plate as is. just feed them a quality medicated chick feed like Cargill's Naturewise brand. and put Bovidr labs poultry nutri-drench in their water for the 1st 2 weeks to get them off to a strong start. the water should look like very weak tea. I have never had a sick or dead chick when I used the drench in their water. just get the smallest bottle at tractor supply. http://www.nutridrench.com.
enjoy your birds.
Karen

 

[lazy gardener]

The fermented feed can wait till you get the chicks settled in. Your choice re: using medicated or unmedicated feed. Do your own research re: that so you are making an informed decision based on YOUR research, not what some one else tells you.