Moving the Chicks Out to Grass

When the 16 chicks hatched out of our incubator, as soon as they were dried off, we moved them out into the garage.  We have a makeshift brooder with a heat lamp set up.  I put newspaper on the concrete and then covered it with hay so that the chicks don't make too big a mess.  We always aim to move them out on grass in a natural setting as soon as possible. 

Besides, they share the garage with Ginger, our cat.  She aggressively hunts, recently killing a bird that got trapped in the garage.  I don't want her to eat our chicks.  Tricia did not like that I suggested that Ginger would do such a thing.  I didn't mean to impugn Ginger's character, but I don't trust her, fully, so I loaded up the 16 chicks in a tub.

We're moving the birds out to our chicken tractor that will be the chicks' home until the hens lay their first egg and the cockrels identify themselves as males.  At that point we'll move the hens out to the pasture with the rest of the flock and the roosters into our freezer.

Since it can still get chilly at night, I moved the brooder out and set it up in the chicken tractor along with the heat lamp dangling from a chain to keep the birds warm and toasty.

They seem to really like being on grass.  Their instincts kick in and they began scratching and pecking at grass seeds and grass.  Pretty soon, we'll have an onslaught of beetles.  They are attracted to light and so I catch them and feed them to the birds.  Good protein for them!

The chicks look healthy and alert.  We want them to get a good start.  They will start laying somewhere between 18-24 weeks.

Just this week, for some reason, we've lost 2 chickens to drowning in the water trough and one to predators.  I'm already itching to get the incubator running again to hatch out some more!

Madder Than a Wet Hen!

So we're going to lay all the cards on the table in today's episode.  Sunday is a day of rest at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  We sleep a little later, then get up and feed the animals, have a cup of coffee and a good breakfast at a leisurely pace.  Then we get cleaned up, put on "church clothes" and leave for Sunday School at about 9:45 am.  Except this past Sunday, the routine wasn't as leisurely and relaxed as it normally is.

It was a little after 7 am and I was deep in REM sleep.  The fan was blowing on me, the bed was oh so comfortable and I had just flipped the pillow over to the cool side.  Then, all of a sudden, there's loud banging on the french door to our bedroom.  I groggily walk over, lift the shade, and peer out.  It's Tricia.  She says, "All the chickens are out!  I need help!"  

"But it's the Sabbath," didn't seem like the right thing to say at the moment.  I'm especially glad I didn't try that after thinking of our Lord saying the following: 

"And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?"  Luke 14:5 KJV

I got dressed with the quickness and headed out for our first annual chicken rodeo, grabbing two crabbing nets from the garage on the way out.  We have a chicken tractor in the back yard with approximately 50 birds in it that we hatched out of our incubator.  I'm about to butcher the roosters and set the hens loose in the pasture, but the last batch of hens aren't quite big enough yet.  Note to self: I need to speed this process up.

Everyday I feed and water them 3 times a day and move the tractor to fresh grass.  Apparently, somebody (OK, it was me) forgot to close the door securely the previous night and in the morning all 50 birds were out, scattered around in the yard.  By the time I got out of bed, Tricia had filled the gutter with feed and had about half of them back in.  She's quite a chicken whisperer.

This is where things got dicey.  Normally, we're a good team and work together well.  But she had a plan to get them back in.  I had a plan that differed.  Her plan was to work together and gently "herd" the chickens in, leaving the door to the tractor open.  I immediately saw a fatal flaw in that plan.  My plan was to use the nets to catch them one by one.  She didn't like my plan.

While trying her plan, which involved leaving the door open, she walked behind the tractor and all the birds that were in the tractor got out!  I might have criticized that maneuver.  I went out to the barn to do the normal chores and let the situation cool down a little in the back yard.  When I got back, I got the net and chased those doggone birds until we caught all but four.

Tricia was legitimately upset with me because she said she's not a man and can't run around catching birds on a Sunday morning before church (especially when I left them out).  She's 100% right, you know.  I apologized profusely.  I didn't want the sun to go down on anger even though it wasn't even 9 am yet.

After Sunday School, we sit together in church.  But, I perceived something was awry.  There was a Bible and a Sunday School book between us.  Where we generally sit close together on the pew, there was a sizable distance between us.  A neighbor came up after church and noticed the wide neutral zone between us and asked "if there was trouble in the camp?"

Tricia told him about the chicken rodeo and the resulting fall-out and we all got a good laugh out of it.

All is good now.  There are several morals to the story:

1. Communication is key!
2. Teamwork is crucial!
3. Remembering to secure the door to the chicken tractor is a top priority to achieving Sabbath rest!
4. I have a gracious, loving, forgiving wife.

Solitary Confinement

This is a mean little Aracuna hen that finds herself (once again) in solitary confinement.  There was a time when she earned her freedom.  Five months ago, she roamed the pasture and enjoyed the freedom of a free range bird.  Then, she betrayed that confidence and began to shimmy through the 4x4 wires of the perimeter fence in the garden.  That citation earned the perp hard time in the chicken tractor months ago, prior to getting the meat birds.  You can see the remnants of their feathers on the ground below.

When the meat birds arrived, she was put on parole, and put back in general population.

All went well - for a time.  And then, I found her in the garden... twice.  She was scratching at the dirt around the onion plants.  She was making quite a mess.  I caught her and through her back out over the fence and into the pasture.  Faster than you can say, "I'd like a spicy chicken sandwich" at Popeye's, she was back in the garden wreaking havoc and causing mayhem.  

She had proved that she was one of those recidivists, who, despite being given a second (and third) chance, could not handle freedom.  She's back in the slammer.

Until you learn your lesson, jailbird, you'll remain at Heartbreak Hotel.

The Poultry Palace

I tend to repeat myself sometimes, but I follow blogs and I appreciate hearing things again and again.  It helps me to learn more and pick up new ideas.  Today, I'll be talking about our newly designed chicken tractor.  I've built other designs before.  You may remember our Ford Eggsplorer?  They were heavy and hard to pull.

After looking at different designs on the Internet, I tweaked the ideas and mixed the features I liked best into one prototype that a friend of mine and I built.  The photo below really doesn't do it justice as it is covered with tarps to protect the birds from some bad weather that was blowing through.  You can see it is on wheels that can be set and then retracted so that the chicken tractor sits on the ground.

It is built on a skeleton of 1/2" PVC pipe, strengthened by a 1 x 4 across the top and a 2 x 4 frame along the bottom.  It is encased in welded wire fencing and that gives it its strength and keeps predators out.  It has a door on one end and the waterer and lights hang down from the 1 x 4 on the ceiling.  That's another nice feature - you can stand up in the chicken tractor and walk.

This angle shows the reservoir (bucket) holding rain water that gravity feeds into a bell waterer in the tractor.  The tarps are ugly, but they (sometimes) protect the birds from wind and rain.  Sometimes, however, it acts as a sail that flips the tractor completely over.  When inclement weather approaches, I now stake the tractor down and put weights on the frame to hold it down.  It has worked so far.  We'll see about tonight!

Each day, sometimes several times a day, I pull the tractor to fresh grass so they can each clover and tender, young grasses.  There are ropes on either end that you use to pull the tractor by hand.  You have to be careful when you pull it not to run over the birds.  They aren't that smart and won't move fast enough and if you aren't paying attention, well, you have a dead bird.  I've accidentally killed more than my fair share over the years.

The chickens are very happy in this design and if I had to build another one, I'd build one just like it.  I would possibly try to think of a better idea for the tarps as the wind seems to tear them up.  If I was going to use it for laying hens, I'd design some lightweight nesting boxes.  This design is perfect just as it is for meat birds though.

One thing you have to watch out for is to make sure after moving it, that you lift the wheels to drop the tractor's base to the ground.  If the ground is uneven, you can have escapees. 

In the past, when it was time for butchering, you had to go load all the chickens up to bring them to where we set up our "slaughter house."  It was a pain.  No more!  Now, we simply pull the tractor right up to where we are going to be butchering.