Feeling the Sweet Soft Sunshine!

Such a cold and wet winter that slowly slid into spring. Cooler temps are slowing the crops.  Record breaking rain fall, in for the Pac NW! The sun brought a much needed day of Vitamin D.  

The Orloff flock will be sold to make way for the new Welsummers. They are ready to move outside.  I'll post photos when they move. 

In the mean time, it was nice to walk around to check my little crops, and pet the gals as they sun bathed for the first time in quite some time. 

The crops above are 3 different types of potatoes in barrels, spinach around red onions, and walla walla sweet onions.

These Orloffs are ready for sale.

The Clucky Flock	There's Sun!
Any Treats for us?

The Welsummers will stay for one more year.

Looky, we have sunshine :)	Buggs! Yeeha!
The Flock of Four

12 day Cornish Cross

The chicks have grown exponentially in size. I have already needed to raise the warmer to the maximum and will probably need to put it on bricks, next week. Switched to shavings today. After I took these photos, it was apparent that the light would need to be moved to the outside of the cage to protect the chicks from getting burned if they hop on top of the warmer, which they love doing.  

The wing and tail feathers are there.  On one of the chicks, other feather quills are already showing up. They eat and eat.  I think it is time to put them on a 12 hour food schedule since they are on a 24 hour feed now, and this seems excessive that they are already so tall. These little fellows are developing at the rate of the turkey chicks that I had last  year! 

Potatoes are up, onions are up and spinach is well on it's way to being almost two inches tall. The cooler temps this spring do seem to be delaying the sprouts as we experienced them last year.  Which is fine by me. Time to get tomatoes in their pots today.

Mid April - Easter Weekend Update

The Welsummer chicks seem to be doing fine in the garage, at this point.  We've had a few really cold days, but we were careful not to let it get too cool in their space. This weekend will be sunny and warmer. If it gets too hot in the garage, we can open up the doors to allow the breezes to flow through.  They are almost five weeks of age, their feet are looking ginormous, their breast feathers are coming in and soon, their head feathers will be sprouting.  The plan is to try to sell the oldest flock of Orloffs are "instant" backyard chickens for people in the inner city who can have up to three, legally.

Sorry about the lighting on these. The Shadows seemed to cause a 3-D effect. 

The six Crosses are a straight run, and so there are likely to be some roosters in the bunch. They are messy eaters, seeming to feel the need to scoop out the food to get to something better. We have a deeper feeder setup that may need to be implemented for them. They are also the poopiest chicks we have ever had. Yeesh! In these photos, you can see the change up of the brooder warmer from the middle of the cage, to being placed under the light which seems to attract these little ones more to the warmth.  

I've been asked about the temperatures for chicks.  Since I no longer bother with using lights as the sole source of heat, I needed to look this one up. Remember this is approximate age.  Some chicks are heartier and can tolerate cooler temps better than others.  Watch for huddling and trying to get into the middle of the group, which indicates that they are too cool.

• 95F 0-10 days of age 
      (the first week of having the chicks from the feed store/hatchery)
• 90F Week 2
• 85F Week 3
• 80F Week 4
• 75F Week 5
• 70F Week 6
• 65F Week 7 
• 60F Week 8 and until fully feathered (7 to 10 weeks is the approximate time to go outside depending on outside temps)

If temperatures are not staying above 60F outside, an added heat source like a heat lamp, may be needed in the coop until the pullets have developed feathers on their heads and fully feathered.  Be extra careful with the heat source in the coop to keep from burning down the coop or hurting the pullets.

My personal opinion; purchasing a brooder warmer, is well worth the investment, even if it isn't used more than a couple months each year. Another warmer is available at this site. When done for the year, or between flocks, I use a damp clorox bleach wipe to clean it all up and ready for the next time I need it.

My Brinsea version has three height settings.  I start with the middle and place an old towel folded into a nice flat surface under the plate until the chicks are about 2 weeks old. I cover the towel with the sheet that I use on the floor of the pen. I remove the towel about the same time that I am switching over to the shavings in the pen, since chicks are usually large enough to manage their heat better without being so close to the warmer.  If you look at the Cornish X chick photos above, you can see the "step up" under the warmer.

Some of our potato crop is peeking out of the ground, despite the cool spring temps and heavy rains. Onions seem to be doing fine.  I don't see any evidence of rot at this point. Will need to keep a close eye on the blasted thripes this year. Spinach, Strawberries, Parsley and Oregano is doing well. Need to get tomato plants in the pots and in the green house since it has been too cool and rainy to put outside yet.  CRAZY spring weather.  It will be interesting to see when we can plant the Corn.  Normally start about mid May, but as cool as it has been, that may be too early this year.

Cornish Cross (X) Hybrid Meat Experiment aka Broiler Chickens

Virtually all chicken meat purchased at the grocery comes from the Cornish X which is a cross breed of chickens to produce the most white meat for the least expense in raising. Similar to the stupid white turkeys bred for Thanksgiving, these chickens are ravenous eaters without the smarts to know when to stop. They are typically large enough to butcher within about two months, unlike heritage meat chickens that may take as long as six months.  

I enjoyed reading the Queen of the Red Double Wide's experiences with raising Cornish Cross. She has the eight week progress report of growth and, well, life experiences of dealing with these funny, quirky birds.

Based on the first two days of having these fluffy yellow chicks, I can assure you that they are not the most instinctive chicks in the bunch.  Normally, I have the warmer on one side of the brooder with the food and water near the light. Typically, within six hours, the chicks have figured out how to navigate between warmth and food.  Not these guys. They huddle around the feeder, and forget that there's warmth nearby. Multiple times, I tried to get them to the warmth, only to have them all gravitate back to the food and then huddle there, again.

Trying a different set up with the warmer under the light, and the food in the middle of the brooder? We'll see if that works better.  Oh, yah.  Only purchased six since I'm not too certain what to expect.

Acclimation Mooove

The chicks all survived their first few weeks, and now they are in the garage acclimating to the cooler temps.  We have a 75watt red light on top of the large dog cage to help with heat, especially at night.  We have foam/poster board attached around the sides to help prevent drafts and keep heat inside, plus it also helps to keep the shavings in the cage. As a backup for heat, I put a space heater outside the pen, that blows warm air in towards them. They seem to be adjusting for now, but it is a warm day, today. We'll see how they react to the cooler days that are coming up. They are in their "long neck stage" getting more feathers and starting to fly, so they are liking this larger space.  

On Wednesday, the meat chicks will be arriving so everything is cleaned up and ready for the next batch coming in.  In a few weeks, we will attempt to sell the three Orloffs as "back yards" to someone in the Portland area that wants to start with an adult flock of three. 

March Madness Welsummer Chick Flock

March Madness is not simply for basketball.  Around here, we have March Chick Madness. We try to start our flock rotation in March.  We did not do this last spring, and although it's not that bad, what we seriously missed was the new flock's transition as egg layers while the older flocks are moulting. This year, will be different again in that we will be transitioning in the new layers while also trying to raise a few meat chickens during the summer months. The meat chicks will arrive the middle of April. 

We picked up four Welsummer chicks (pullets) yesterday and they are adapting.  It's always such a strange shift.  The first few days (usually about 5 days), the chicks seem too small for the brooder, which is, essentially, a small animal cage with high sides.  But by the end of the week, they will be all over the floor space, starting to flap their wings, and by the end of the second week, they will be too big for our brooder cage.  We have a larger, alternate brooder space ready to move them out to the garage by that time.  After a month, they will be almost ready to go outside! We will have our next batch of chickens and will be starting all over.  So this year, we will have 10 chicks in total for the spring fling.

It's hard getting good photos with the subdued lighting with speedy little balls of fluff.  This is the best I could do, today. These gals hatched approximately March 12th or 13th. We know that they are females because of the black markings on the sides of their heads, behind their eyes. Whee!

Some people ask us why we don't use straw or wood flakes in the brooder.  We find that the new chicks' legs and feeding habits get a better start on a firm, non-slippery surface. So we have cut-up an old sheet into sections that we change out every day during the first week. Then, by the second week, we usually transition in some aspen shavings along with a sprinkling of diatomaceous earth (DE) because the aspen has less odor than the pine (never use cedar). The DE helps to cut down on loose stools and helps to reduce the lice situation that sometimes shows up about this time.  We always use food grade DE. And by week three, the chick fecal smell is so bad, that it's time to move them out into the garage!  I hand wash the little sheets in a mild bleach solution; letting them air dry so that there is not a chemical smell for the next use.

New Chick Spring Prep

Spring is rapidly approaching and this is a time for planning for new chicks.  We will be getting some more Welsummers and since they take a bit longer to mature, we are getting them in mid-March. A month later, in mid-April, we will pick up some Cornish Cross for meat purposes.  

We will try to sell some of the older hens in the summer, around July so that we can ensure that there's room for the new Welsummers who should be ready to start laying in September while our remaining hens are moulting. The Cornish Cross mature more quickly, so getting them in April should not be a problem as we transition the Welsummers into their own coop.  

We have plenty of coops for any new chicks, so we will not need to scramble this year, like we have needed to in the past. Whew!