Archive for October, 2007
Four Weeks On!
Well, would you believe the chicks are actually 4 weeks old now! The transformation is remarkable. They are no longer chicks, but little chickens. My friend came over to see them on Thursday. “Oh,” she said “I was expecting to see little yellow things!” “They were for about 2 days” said hubby, “but then they started to get their little white wings.” I read in an old smallholder magazine that once past the 4 week stage, they don’t call them chicks now, they are growers, or pullets, so I don’t have any little yellow fluffy chicks anymore! Well, not until this lot are grown and sold (hopefully!!)
My brother phoned me this morning to say there was a 10×8 shed on freecycle, so I’ve emailed the lady to see if she will let us have it. Hubby has started to extend the big henhouse by another 16ft, but he hurt his leg last week and has to keep stopping for a rest. So the shed will be 34ft x 6ft, but still won’t be big enough for the 300 when they are bigger. Here’s hoping that lady lets me have her shed. Then they may just be big enough! Especially as I want to put 12 of them in with my new POL’s so I’ll have 24 layers.
When I put the wardrobe in the shed to use as another brooder, I’d put some ground cover stuff (terram) down to put their shavings on to help keep them warm, and I made sure that there were no frayed edges for the chicks to get hold of. Well, just shows you what they get up to. I went out to see them yesterday, and one was walking around with a long strand of terram hanging out of its mouth. I tried to get hold of it to pull it out, but the chick moved away. I finally caught the strand and gently pulled it, but the chick had a tight hold on it and wouldn’t let go. So I kept pulling gently, and the strand started to come out of its mouth, but to my horror, the chick had swallowed about a foot of this strand, its a wonder she didn’t die! silly chick. I don’t know where it came from, as I can’t see any loose bits around on the floor of the brooder!
I’m so glad we got the larger drinkers, as now I can hang them up, the water stays a bit cleaner, instead of being choked up with shavings and chick poo!
I weighed some of them on Friday, their 4 week birthday, and apart from a couple which are slightly smaller, most of them weighed between 250 and 350 gms. The ideal is 275 to 310, so they are doing fine. Still don’t stop eating though! They’ve got through 100kgs of chick crumbs since last Saturday!
I should be able to start putting them on growers pellets now, but there are still several bags of chick crumb left, so I think I will wait until next week, then start to mix the 2 feeds together to wean them over gradually.
Up to me neck in muck and pellets!!!
Well chick crumbs actually, but doesn’t quite have the same ring to it does it? lol
Decided to clean the chicks out today, as although their ‘deep litter’ looked okay, it was smelling a bit of ammonia, which was a bit strange, as it looked dry, usually only starts to smell of ammonia when it gets damp. So, took all the drinkers and feeders out. We had to buy them some new feeders, as they are getting too tall now for the chick trough feeders we bought when they were tiny. These ones are made from plastic, which OH said he’s never liked, but they arrived yesterday, and he is very impressed. They are so much lighter than the galvanised ones we use for the big chooks, and will be much easier to clean. We also bought 3 new plastic drinkers for the chooks in the wardrobe brooder and cold frame hospital! The small ones we bought initially, we had to stand on blocks of wood as they don’t hang, but the chicks throw up so much of their shavings, that by morning, they can’t get any water out as the drinkers are choked with shavings and poo! At least the new ones hang up, and I only need to give them their fresh water twice a day instead of about 4 times!
So I got into the brooder shed, with my small shovel, and very gently and carefully started to get the old shavings off the floor. You’d think I was trying to kill them all! The noise they were making, and as I was working my way around the shed, the silly chicks wouldn’t move around to get out of my way, they just bunched up together, about 4 high! I could hear the squeals of panic from the ones at the bottom of the pile, so I had to keep stopping what I was doing to lift the top 3 layers of chicks off, and pick the others up as they were just laying there!!! Once they stood up though, they realised they were actually still alive, and ran off with the rest!
Once it was all nice and clean, I put the clean shavings in and replaced all the feeders and drinkers. Then they all went wild, dustbathing in the new shavings!! After I put the clean shavings in the smaller shed, I put a feed trough back in as 1 big feeder wasn’t enough for all 75 chicks, but when I went back a bit later to see how they were, they had covered it in shavings. You couldn’t even see it!!
The new feeders hold 12kg of chick crumbs, plus the chicks in the big shed have 2 feed troughs as well, and after only one day, it was almost empty! They can eat for England these chicks! But when I was cleaning them out, its surprising how much chick crumb they waste, but you can’t re-use it as its covered in poo and shavings. No wonder they are costing so much to feed!
Whenever I open the shed doors, there are always up to 10 chicks sitting on the hardboard sides of the brooder, which are 2ft high! And when they have a mad few minutes exercise, they fly all over the place, and can easily get higher than 2ft!
At nearly 4 weeks of age, they have nearly lost their yellow down now, and are almost all white, and you can see their tiny combs appearing. I’ll take another photo of them on Friday when they are 4 weeks old.
