Growing Pains

The meat chickens are growing by leaps and bounds.  They are two weeks old.  Here is the growth chart showing the evolution from beauty to beast:


One day old - exhibiting a high cuteness factor



One week old - wing feathers starting to come in

  

Two weeks old and Too big to fit in Benjamin's hand.  Look at those big feet!


The 50 yellow, cute puffballs have turned into 49 ugly birds that do nothing but eat and poop constantly.  Why 49 you ask?  Well, I had to bury one in the garden today.  After eating, they have a tendency to pile up in a corner of the brooder.  Sometimes when they do this, the suffocate one another.  One way to alleviate this is to fix the brooder so that there are no corners by putting some curved paneling or thin wood that bends in the corners. 

Another solution is to move them out to a bigger area.  That is on my agenda tomorrow.  I intend to move them to the chicken tractor in the pasture that the pullets were in.  That is a pretty big task since I'll have to set up 3 heat lamps, move the feed troughs and waterer and run an extension cord.  But I can't wait any longer as the brooder is in the garage and the smell of 49 birds is quite overpowering.  

On a more pleasant and more appetizing note, Tricia harvested a colander full of fresh greens today to incorporate into a bowtie pasta dish with sausage and mushrooms and alfredo sauce.  The greens with the yellow ribs is Swiss chard, following clockwise, we have fresh spinach, basil, sugar snap peas and green onions. 


Fresh picked produce