where to keep chicks

[lsutigers1809]

hello everyone Im wondering where y'all keep your chicks until you put them in with the flock andabout what age you intergrade them into the flock thank y'all

 

[ericmcginn5]

i had a old rabbit cage i built into a brooder i keep them in the brodder in the shed dont know what age to add to flock tho

 

[mandelyn]

I have a series of 3 brooders. They start in a 95 quart tote with a screen lid for 2 weeks. Then a 3x3 wire cage that has a galvanized base that is about 7 inches tall on the sides to retain bedding. From there they go outside to an 8ftx3 hutch, between 6-8 weeks old depending on weather. That's when I start introducing them to the others, during supervised free range.

It then becomes a waiting game. When will the adults let them into the coop proper? I'll take them on trips to the coop when it's empty to let them learn their way around. Then I'll put the birds up and watch from the window, about a week after daily free range. If things are ok, they stay. If a sassy hen rips out a ton of feathers off one, I put them back in the hutch and try again the next day. And so on and so forth, until they are accepted. It can take a week or 5, depends on who I have in the coop.

But I never put partially grown birds into the coop without watching. Easy way to get some injuries or worse if the babies aren't large enough to fend for themselves. I'll let mature hens sort it out, but not the babies. The babies will not stand up for themselves, they'll cry and run away.

Sometimes I'll set up a dog crate in the coop and put the babies in that, if I only have 3 or less to add.

If you don't have a place where they can start mingling, I would wait until they are 12 weeks old to add them to the coop. Fully feathered (8 weeks) will have them handling weather conditions ok, but their size isn't large enough yet (nor their confidence) to deal with mature hens.

You would think that there would be strength in numbers, but I've seen an obnoxious type hen put herself in the middle of a group and start pecking away at them and chasing them all off, 10 of them. It only takes one bad apple to make things complicated.

I've learned not to sell extra pens and brooders... I have a collection of dog crates and I'm not parting with the "mother of all rabbit hutches" even though we don't have rabbits any longer. It makes such a nice grow out pen! I can put a divider in it too, should I find myself with two groups of babies needing introduced to each other.

The coop also has a support wall in the middle and 2 pop doors, in case I need to run wire down the center and divide it for adding a group.

It's quite handy to have numerous places a bird can go, and also having the ability to alter the space easily. Our yard isn't all that big, but the coop itself allows for several different methods of adding birds. I try to keep myself below the maximum it will hold, so that I won't crowd the others if the coop needs to shrink momentarily with an added crate or divider wall.