My chicks are 2 weeks apart: almost 6 weeks and almost 4 weeks. It's going OK. There's some chasing by the bigger ones, but not bad. I have 2 heat lamps in the coop. I originally would have liked them all to sleep together in the brooder/warmer area, but one group sleeps in the brooder and the other seems to want to sleep outside the brooder under the other heat lamp. I'm not crazy about the separation between the ages and have been putting them all together to sleep in the brooder area. Should I continue to do this or should I just let them sleep where they feel like it? Some of the older ones look like they are planning to roost, but there's no heat lamp available there. I'm getting slightly tired of playing chicken games and am ready to just let them do what they want to do. Is that a good idea? Am I micromanaging, LOL??
I'd let me do their own thing...my chickens have always separated themselves by breed and age anyway.....Just too much worrying on my part and I quit that long ago!...lol
Great, thank you!!! The whole worrying thing is growing VERY old. They ain't little fuzzy butts anymore, LOL. I need to let them be chickeny. Thanks!
I let mine do their own thing. They are all the same age but there is definitely two separate groups. I have the 6 that sleep on the roost and the the rest sleep together in the shavings. Funny that more don't sleep on the roost there is room for more. But hey if that's what they want so be it. I also don't know how they stay on the roost while sleeping. You watch them and they have their heads hanging down, some balancing act going on.
Hehe....balancing act is right!! I just got in from closing up the coop and now all 6 of my six-weekers are roosting. The last two nights, four were roosting and my roo and his sister were still sleeping on the shavings under the one heat emitter. But I guess peer pressure got to them, LOL. Now they are all cuddled up on the roost, 6 chickens taking up about 18 inches of roost space. The littler peeps are on the shavings under the other heat emitter. All's well in peepland.