Four Weeks and Counting Until Ready to Go Outside 2023

This is the MOST chicks we have ever attempted brooding at once. We planned on 50, and ended up with 59! All survived which is really quite extraordinary. 

We really needed another brooder for all these chicks, but we worked our way through.  We started brooding in the house the first two weeks in large boxes.  Started with two large boxes, and within a week, we needed to add another large box to handle their growth.  We had the freezing temps with much cooler than typical end of February weather. We moved the chicks into the larger, four-foot square brooders during the first week of March. We had 29 chicks in one brooder and 30 chicks in the other brooder.  This was fine at the start of the month, but now, two weeks in to March, it is no longer feasible.  Typically, we can keep about 20 chicks in our brooders from week one to week six. Um.... yah, we really needed one more large brooder. 

We decided, since 26 of the chicks will be leaving for their new homes in a couple of weeks, that we would divide them in half (based on their respective mini-flocks) to give them the added space for the next two weeks.  This helps with their flock bonding experience by reducing the stress because they won't be crowded at all for the next two weeks. We placed the other 33 chicks into our larger six-foot square pull pen.  Typically, we use this pen while pasturing and growing out our meat chickens. The chicks are small enough (at the moment) to have plenty of running, chasing around, and flying space in this larger pen for at least the next four to six weeks. We will be selling most of the rest of our chicks by that time as "left overs."  We bought extra of all breeds to ensure that if any died or any were roosters, we would still have some of each breed available for the people we presold for this winter/spring. 

We already have people interested in our 10+ week leftover pullets.  So I'm fairly certain that we will be able to sell all those extras before spring is done.

Drifting Snow Field 2023

So, the snow is still here.  Not really any new snow.  It's just moving around. With the sunshine, the icicles are growing each day and some are circling into distorted spirals. 

Chickens are getting more sunshine as the snow blows away from their coop but they are not liking this cold weather.  Doing our best to protect them from the coldest of the winds, from the east and north. Waterer warmer plate is doing its job and have been throwing a couple handfuls of scratch into their flip-proof bowls for a little extra digestion warmth for the evenings. 

Still pretty cold out, and not a lot of real melting going on. 

Snow Got Much Deeper 2023

 It kept snowing to the depth of 8 inches this morning. The ducks' coop actually acted a bit like an igloo and they stayed pretty warm.  The reason I know this it the fact that the water warmers got unplugged at some point last night or this morning.  An animal may have bumped/tripped on the cord and it was pulled out of the outlet on the house. The chickens' water was totally frozen in the trough (but not inside the fount). I checked on the duck's bucket of water, and it was starting to get some ice crystals, but not frozen at about 10 this morning. The air temps are about 25F but with the wind chill, the temps feel like they are in the teens.  

I covered the chicken's wire door because snow was getting inside a little last night. The ground is frozen inside their pen at this point, so I have spread out some grass hay for them to be able to get to their feed and to their waterer (that is now warmed). They did lay three eggs today, but I will be surprised if they lay tomorrow considering how cold it is. 

The ducks are playing in their pool, but we are checking on them hourly because the temps are freezing.  They are not venturing into the snow today since it is too deep for them to navigate. There is a path beat from their coop to their pool, and so they are traveling only to those two locations inside their pen today. I also spread some grass hay inside their coop, but only close to the walls since they don't like to walk on it and it interferes in their ability to drill holes in the ground in their coop. 

Ducks have a different circulation system in their bodies, feet and legs. They stay warmer and even in freezing temps, their feet are less likely to experience frost bite, like chickens can develop by walking on frozen ground. 

Snow Day for Hens and Ducks February 2023

We aren't getting a ton of snow, but enough that it is turning things white around here. Snow is coming in from the Northeast so we have wind panels up on those sides of the chicken coop, and the duck coop door is turned towards the South. At times, the flakes are pretty large, about the size of a quarter, but mostly just small, wet, flakes. 

Gave the hens some scratch.  We had a bad day yesterday in that it was windy and it blew their house hatch closed, locking them all inside for the majority of the day.  We knew it had to have been most of the day because there were no eggs in the nesting box. When we moved them to some fresh ground last night I put a light inside their house with some fresh water, while we did all the prep work for the potential of snow today. That way they could, at least, rehydrate before going to roost. Poor Girls. So they deserve a little extra scratch today. 

Ducks are doing great. Playing in their pool and running around inside their pen checking out the snow. We need to keep an eye on the white/fawn duck as she likes to take flight into the wind and we are having just enough wind to make it possible for her to fly right out of the pen. LOL

Update, these photos were at 2pm. By 6pm, the snow was five inches deep and still building up. When I went out to put the birds to bed, the duck coop looked like an igloo cave. 

Peeps, Cheeps, & Bedtime Trills

This is a short compilation of pre and post bedtime for the chicks.  We are lowering the lighting trying to get them prepared for sleeping, but just like children, the chicks will try to grab everything they can before being made to go to bed. Make note of the sounds.  Before it gets dark, they are happy and even making a few trills of joy. After it goes dark, we have 59 distressed cheeps all at once.  They will scramble towards the other cheeps and pile on each other, crushing some in the bottom of the pile. So it is important to sweep through the brooder to guide the chicks back over to their warmer and tuck them under until all are happy and satisfied, once again.

New Photo Stage for Chicks

 When we raise chicks for others, we like to send them weekly photos of their chicks' development.  I like for them to be able to watch their chicks grow, and are fun to look back over the weeks for the changes. I decided to invest in a photography box to help the photos look a bit more professional. I think this will work. 

Fresh Chicks Mid-February 2023

We are starting chicks earlier this year. We received 51 chicks this morning that traveled about 2400 miles shipped on Wednesday from the hatchery.  Excellent crating and shipping services. USPS tracking never was updated until after we received them. But they arrived in great shape and on-time. The clerk at the PO said a batch of chicks that arrived at their station yesterday from a different hatchery was not in such good shape and many of their chicks had died en route. That's just sad :(