Chicks are Out!!

These are our broiler chicks this year! They are a month old in the picture and outside at last. We normally put them out at 3 weeks but it's been too crazy, but a week late is not too bad. We found they moved out much easier and wanted to stay out much faster! Bonus!! They spent the 1st four weeks in the barn you see in the back there. The wheel barrow is full of a mixture of ground grains, supplement, and milk. The chicks are getting several gallons of milk a day mixed into their food. We are also doing the Willard's water in their water this year as we had GREAT results with this feeding solution last year. So far out of 208 birds we got from the hatchery we have lost 4. Two were VERY tiny and one was scarred on it's rear.

Can your Cornish Giant Cockerels do this? LOL. Happy healthy birds!! This morning when I went out to feed there was close to 10 of them in the wheel barrow!!

These birds will get moved farther away from the barn, they are already cut off from it, today. From now on they will be moved inside the electric netting every 2 days for the 1st little bit and then every day as they get big enough to use the whole space in one day. Their feeders get moved everyday even if the pen does not so that they graze the whole area. The feeders are old eves troughing which work great as they tip if they stand on them and are really light to move! They will go out on our newly scythed piece in the next few days. In this way they will mow a lot of our grass in the next 4 weeks. They eat bugs, grass, seeds and whatever else they can find and fertilize the ground as they go! In 4 or 5 weeks we'll butcher them and they'll be our chicken for the year. Yes we really do eat that much chicken :) We have a standing trade with one couple, hay for chicken and milk, for 50 of them but the rest will go into our freezer.