Getting to Know You

Our new chicks aren't so little anymore. They're a month old now, and most of their feathers have come in. They are getting to that awkward phase for sure:


From left to right are Rachel, Louisa Catherine (the black one pecking at the ground), and Lizzy.  

Today was nice and warm, so we took the opportunity to let them have their first day outside. They are in the chicken run, and they were definitely interested in scratching, taking dust baths, and exploring every inch of their interesting new space. This kept them from pecking at each other, which has gotten a little intense over the past few days — when you hear a wrestling match and find Lizzy's feathers in Rachel's mouth, you know it's time for them to move out.

You can't just throw strange chickens into and existing flock, though. That pecking order stuff is for real, and the little ones could actually be in danger from our grown chickens protecting their turf. To get everyone accustomed to each other, Kirk sectioned off a portion of the run with a little extra framing and some chicken wire:


There's a chicken wire wall about three feet high that separates the chicks from the big girls, and Kirk added another length to make a roof just in case anyone gets curious or extra bold and tries to jump out. All we have to do is bend it back and let it flop open towards us to get to the chicks and their food.


Our big hens came rushing over to see what was going on at first, but most grew bored pretty quickly. Dolley, on the other hand, has been patrolling the perimeter and giving a little peck at the chicks whenever they get close to the wire. This doesn't seem evil so much as part of her general curiosity-driven pecking at everything. Sally came out of the henhouse crowing when she laid today, and went straight down the ramp the crow at the babies for a good 15 minutes to show them who rules the roost. She hasn't glanced at them since.

It's not yet warm enough to leave the chicks out in the run overnight, though. They still need it to be about 70-75 degrees, so we gathered them up and put them back in the brooder under the heat lamp for bedtime. The brooder now resides in the garage, though, because these chicks are just too much to keep indoors anymore. They are much rowdier than the others ever were, and they feel more like farm animals and less like pets. We're definitely glad to get them outside.

On warm days we'll put them back in the run to continue letting everyone get used to each other. By June it should be warm enough — and the chicks should be big enough — to fully integrate them into the flock.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What to Do With an Unripe Watermelon

Image
Back on the first weekend of August we were so excited to see how big our watermelons were getting. We checked all the signs of ripeness: good sound, firm skin, yellow bottom. So Kirk brought one in: And we sliced it open: Shit. This is not meant to be a yellow watermelon. It only even looks that way in the photo because of the lighting — it's really white throughout. It's Sweet Favorite, and it's supposed to be red.  After the huge wave of disappointment rolled through the room, we all took a bite anyway.  It's not sweet, but it's not sour or bitter, either. It tastes like watermelon, just without the sugar. Kind of like a watermelon-flavored cucumber. It's too big to let go to waste, and we felt obligated to wrap it up and keep it in the fridge until we figured out something to with it.   Dish #1: Watermelon Kachumber Kachumber is an Indian salad that is normally made with cucumber. Here we used some of our unripe w
Read more

Last Weekend of Winter

Image
It's the last weekend of winter! Next weekend we'll be beyond the equinox, and the days will be ever-so-slightly longer than the nights.  We still have snow on the ground, lots of wind, and temperatures in the 30s, but we plowed ahead with our almost-spring garden chores anyway. Here's what we did this weekend: 1. Got the chickens out on the raised bed where to prep the soil for planting greens: 2. Poked around the greenhouse tunnels to harvest the last veggies: parsnips and a couple leeks, plus a few leftover fall cabbages for the chickens (which they were very  excited about). We do still have some spinach, mache and kale left as well, but not much. 3. Improved the maple sugaring set-up by building a bigger firebox: Kirk used leftover bricks we had lying around to make a floor (so as not to ruin the bricks on our patio), then got nine cinderblocks to make the three walls of the firebox (solid side toward the fire). He also picked up some steel
Read more

So Where's Everybody From?

Image
I don't have any new garden pictures or updates for you today. I have to say, it's getting kind of hard to get a good photo during the one hour of waning daylight left by the time I get home from work. These are the darkest days now, as we hurtle toward the solstice. Without any photos for me to share with you today, I thought it would be a good time to ask: Where're y'all from? If you have never kept a blog of your own, you might not know that the writer of one gets a bunch of stats about who has hit on the webpage. Most of it's not very interesting: I don't care how many of you use your iPhone vs. a PC or what browser you use to surf the web. The one interesting part, though, is the map . Blogger keeps track of what country readers are in when they check out my page. It's fascinating! Here's my readership map for November: I figured my readers were mostly my Facebook friends, and I know where they are. But now my list of countries is gettin
Read more