They are here, well mostly anyhow!

[Bushman50]

Okay people, I've finally taken the plunge and purchased my first chicks. I got some heritage birds from a hobby farm in my area. You will have to have patience with me because, in "our" (took family and let my wife pick most of them) picking frenzy I am a little fuzzy as to exactly what I got . Lets see I know we have some Black Australorps , various Cochins , Aurcana's and that's were it gets fuzzy . The lady whom sold us the birds admitted that her husband is much better at identifying the different birds, so the last birds we're not sure if they are Rhode Island Reds or not. We do know that we have 12 pullets and 3 Cockrells for a total of 15 chicks. We were told that they were two weeks old. She had some new hatches available , but since they were the same price and quite a bit more "hardy" than the little fluff balls we chose them. Now I just have to build a brooder. I have several boxes and a few totes, but with them being bigger than anticipated the brooders are just adequate. Oh yeah by the way, my uncle wants to add 15 more (Reds) which will bring my total up to 30 maybe by weeks end!




I've switched to a quart chick water dispenser and there's slightly more room. I am mulling over how I'm going to build them a much larger brooder (got 15 more chicks coming remember), so hopefully by weeks end I'll be building it. I do have one question "Why do they poop in their food and water every chance they get?" I mean after a while there's a ton of shavings and poop in the ring around the water!

 

[Bushman50]

Well I finally built a larger brooder. Its 4x4x2 with a plexi glass window in the front and mesh hindged lid. I still haven't procured any more birds, but I have a feeling that will change soon. I found another farmer who sells mostly ornamental breeds, but he did say he has Jersey Giants. I've wanted a few ever since I found out how large they can get. I will probably only get about 3 of them though. That is if he can sex them. Looks like the ducks are back on the list and I've recently rescued two rabbits of unknown origin. They are pretty big, but the previous owners didn't know what they were or their sexes. I think I may have two bucks though.

 

[Bushman50]

I've noticed that the chicks seem to spar now that they have all the extra room in their new brooder. They are constantly flying at each other . I guess they are attempting to set their "pecking order" . Oddly enough when they had less space they didn't do it at all.

 

[Bushman50]

Update Photo's.....






I couldn't resist throwing them some snacks. I was moving some wood and these grubs and "tons" of earthworms were literally on top of the ground. You should have seen them scramble to be the first to get the worms! They are getting pretty big now, and sadly it seems my recently constructed brooder is already looking smaller and smaller. I believe that they should be about 5-6 weeks of age at this point and I'm woefully behind in construction of their permanent coop and run. Sooooo! after brainstorming at work last night and taking a cue from a co-worker who's also starting chickens this year, I decided to go ahead and build a chicken tractor as temporary housing until I can finish their coop! I had planned to try out a tractor eventually, so it looks like "eventually" came alot sooner than I thought!.

 

[JanetS]

Very cute! And yes they grow in a hurry. Better get started on their coop/tractor. We put ours outside in their coop when they were 8 weeks old.