Last week, we picked up six little peeps for the second meat growing season for the PacNW. In our garage, I set up a short version of the small outdoor run that I have for young pullets that I use in the springtime for transition from indoors to outdoors. The run comes in two sections that hook together for about a five foot run. So the chicks are in one half of the pen in my hope to minimize having to move them from one pen to the next since they grow so quickly. I have cardboard on the cement floor to minimize the coldness from the ground. I have an old sheet for the "floor" of the pen to help keep in the wood shavings. I always use aspen since the odor is less intense with it.
I have the brooder warmer's height at its highest level with an old folded up sheet for them to sleep on at night. That way I can wash the sheet every couple of days since that area contains the largest concentration of POOH in the pen. I have poster board all around the sides (outsides) to help keep heat in, and drafts out. At night, I cover the top of the pen with a large sheet and have a space heater just outside the pen that pushes warm air into the pen between two of the poster boards to help it stay nice and warm while they sleep. Today, they were congregated in front of the heater rather than snuggling under the brooder. This is a good indication that the area is warm enough for them that they are not all bunched up but not all sprawled out at the opposite end of the pen trying to get away from the heat.
We picked up the chicks on Wednesday so they are almost a week old (Monday-ish). Their little white feathers are already starting to grow. We have everything set up for the move outside in a few weeks.
The older Welsummers are moulting as of this week. We took the oyster shell out of their pen and will switch them over to a higher protein diet as they shed their feathers. I was actually hoping to sell them off this weekend, but, alas, I waited a week too long. I won't sell them during the moult since that would be just toooooo stressful on them. It has been bad enough on them with the smoke from the out-of-control fires just a few miles north east of us for the past two weeks. Today, it started raining! This should help to contain the wild fire.
