Picture This > Becoming Chicken Farmers! (15)
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Cornish X chicks
We bought 26 one week old Cornish X chicks on the 3rd of April. Only one was a runt and did not make it past the first month. We started the one week old chicks in a large plastic container, with wood chips on the floor. They did well in that environment for the first two weeks or so.
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Pullets
At the same time we bought 25 pullets and kept them in a seperate container. We bought five each of Rhode Island Red; New Hampshire Red; Buff Orpington; Barred Plymouth Rock; Silver Laced Wyndote. All of them are still doing very well.
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Bigger Quarters
We moved all the chicks into bigger quarters at about three weeks old. We were able to make two 4 x 8 pens in the garage and the chicks did very well here until now (5 weeks). We kept the heat lamps on all the time for the first month, and the temps at night were dropping into the mid thirties during this time, so we needed to make sure the chicks could stay warm.
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Home on the Range
We built a "chicken ark" for the pullets to use until they start laying. It is depicted in some of the next photos. At first we had it out on the field south of our house and yard, but we werte worried about predators so we moved it up closer to the house.
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A Happy Spot - Hopefully
The chicken ark is very easy to move, and we situated it in our yard just off the driveway and at a place where the motion sensor on the driveway lights will pick up any movement at night. Hopefully this will deter any predators. We live in an area where they are all quite common - hawks, snakes, coyotes, fox, raccon, etc.
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Pullets Getting Used to the Great Outdoors
The pullets are now living in their new quarters outside, and at 5 weeks it may be a bit early, but more on that later.
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Pullets at PLay
The chicks have an 8' x 8' yard to enjoy as well as a 4' x 8' enclosed coop.
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Safe and Secure
The plan is that the chicks will get into their coop at night and close the door. Well, we may need to help them close the door, but that is fairly easy. Hopefully then the coop will withstand any onslot by the big bad woldf or any of his henchmen.
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Side Door Closed
I put in side doors into the coop to make it easy to put feed in and water. Later on if we want - and it seems safe - we can leave these doors open and let the hens free range around the coop. Or we can even put in a couple of nests for them when they start laying. We probably will not keep all of them in this coop once they get to that point, We will see how things go.
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Side Door Open
This shot shows how the inside of the coop is set up at this time. We still want to put in more perches, but the hardware cloth floor keeps them off the ground in any case.
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Heat Lamp
Initially I didn't have anything in mind for a heat lamp, as I had thought to wait till a bit later in the summer when the chicks were bigger and the weather warmer. But I retrofitted a heat lamp into the roof of the coop and this made it possible for us to move the chicks now at five weeks at the end of April. I will have a lid to seal this once we don't need the light anymore. Still need to weather proof this a bit.
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Guest Quarters
Have placed a racoon trap next to the coop on either side in case any bad boys come acalling. Maybe that will help? We will see... or not, hopefully.
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Going Green
The chicks seem to be enjoying the fresh green grass, Hope they can handle it okay.
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Spring Cleaning
Have cleaned out the pullets old quarters and will split the Cornish X chicks between the two so that they have more room. They should be ready to butcher when we get back from our upcoming trip.
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Happy Chicks
Well, the Cornish X chicks don't get to go outside, but they seem happy with their expanded quarters and we are trying to keep their quality of life at as high a level as possible. They have really grown already.
