Pastured Poultry

We've discussed pastured poultry before.  All of our laying hens are free to roam all over the pasture to eat bugs, worms, clover, grass, and even (gasp) scratch through the cow patties for tasty morsels.  Our meat birds are put out to pasture after spending a couple of weeks in the brooder in our garage.  We want to get them out on green grass as quickly as possible because these aren't factory birds.  We use no antibiotics, hormones or medicated feed.  We want healthy birds on pasture to provide us with a healthy meal in about 8 weeks, give or take a week or two.

Here is a one of our homemade brooders where they reside under heat lamps until we move them to the chicken tractor out on the pasture.

One of our chicken brooders

Our old garden cart after being used and abused for several years finally went kaput.  Tricia purchased a larger one and Russ and I put it together Saturday morning just in time for transporting chicks.  I measured a piece of cardboard from the box that the wagon came in to serve as a floor.  If I didn't do this, the chicken's feet would fall through the bottom of the wagon.


New wagon

One by one we picked up all of the meat birds and loaded them into the cart.  In all we're moving 81 Cornish Cross Meat birds out to one chicken tractor and 23 Barred Rock pullets to another tractor.  Here are the meat birds ready for a short trek to the pasture.


Meals on Wheels

Man, do they make a mess!  All the soiled bedding will be composted and we'll be happy to have our garage cleared of all of the smelly brooders. 

"Fowl" smelling!

Conveniently, we used the other half of the box that we didn't cut for the floor to use as a lid for the wagon.  If we didn't do this, we would be chasing chickens since they can jump out of the wagon.


Keeping a lid on things

We have 3 chicken tractors and they are all built a little differently.  Although not engineered for beauty or structural integrity, they work.  The one below where the meat birds are going have a portion covered by tin so they can get out of the rain and an open portion where they can relax in the sun.  Although it has roosting bars, meat birds are too fat and lazy to climb up on them.  They're mainly used when I put egg layers in it.  It has a trap door in the front and on top.  The orange thing hanging is a bell waterer that is being gravity-fed water from the yellow bucket on the roof.  There's also a hanging feed trough.

Notice that I've screwed tin skirting to the bottom frame to keep predators from reaching under and killing the chicks.  Finally, the most important parts - there is no bottom, allowing them to eat fresh grass.  The tractor is also on wheels, enabling me to push it to fresh grass each and every day, providing fertilizer for the grass that will grow to feed our cows. 


One of the Chicken Tractors on the pasture

Here are the Barred Rock pullets (Brown egg layers) that I've placed in the other tractor.  I'll leave them here for a few months until they're grown and have a fighting chance against predators.  They will begin to lay somewhere between 20 - 24 weeks old.  At that point, I'll set them free in the pasture to roam and eat at will.  These girls are tough.  They are already flying up and roosting on the 2 x 4 you see running horizontally.  They don't need to be babied.
 

Barred Rock Pullets

Russ moved the chicks from the wagon and placed them into their new home for the next 6 weeks.  At 8 weeks we'll butcher them.  Nellie and Annie provide a welcoming party to welcome the new crew to the pasture.

House warming party

If you look under Nellie's neck, you can see one of the adult Barred Rock hens being nosy as well.  The hens follow the tractor as I push it and eat any leftover feed that the meat birds might have left behind.

Finally, here is a top view looking in from the trap door on top of the tractor.  The chicks are spreading out and curiously exploring their new environment.  These birds are very high maintenance at this stage.  You have to really watch the weather.  A unexpected thunderstorm that drops several inches of rain can quickly transform happy chicks into dead ones.

When inclement weather approaches, I bring a couple of blue tarps and a staple gun and cover the tractor to try to protect the birds.  They have a weak constitution and will die faster than a hot knife passes through butter.  Tonight a thunderstorm rolled through, dropping 1/2 inch of rain and Russ and I got out there and babied them.  Last night we went to an LSU baseball game and it rained 2 tenths of an inch.  They got wet and cold and piled up on one another and this morning 4 were dead.  (Frown)  These birds are dumber than a box of rocks.


Finally some elbow room

Over the next 3 weeks, these birds will outgrow the tractor.  At that point, I will open the trap door in the front.  On the left side of the bell waterer is a wooden door with hinges.  I'll open that and I have some hog panels that I set up that more than doubles the area on which the chickens can roam and eat grass.

So the birds are now on pasture.  They're happy and we're happy.