Monday, August 9, 2010

Chicks Move Outside

I almost forgot about the blog which is why I didn't write for a long time. I had written this by hand a couple months ago, but forgot to post it.

Since we knew we would bring the chicks outside soon we built them a little house of wood with a window in the front. They lived in for about a week. Then because the chicks were almost six weeks old we decided to bring them outside permanently. They had grown a lot of feathers though fluffy (our Barred Rock) was still very fluffy and had fewer feathers than the others. We also built a three foot by four foot portable fence, so that we could enter the chicks four foot by five foot area and then close it so no chickens could get in or chicks could escape. Because the area we closed off for the chicks was in the aviary the chickens were annoyed at losing that space. Their food was where the chicks were now so we moved the too. By the time the chicks reached two months, they wanted more space. So whenever we let the chickens into the yard we would let the chicks into the aviary and close the door. Soon we stopped closing the door when the chickens were out, so that they would mix with the chicks more. Whenever they were inside the aviary, we put scratch next to the fence dividing the chicks from the chickens so they would notice each other more.