Outdoor Chicks

We are so glad for the last few days of sunny weather! What a break for us and for the chicks. The forecast shows PM showers again tonight, with rain tomorrow and the next day, and the next day, and the next day...

From that first morning when it was pouring at 4am (read about it in "Got Chicks!"), the weather has really proven our biggest challenge and hassle factor. Our original plan was to have the chicks on pasture from the moment they arrived home, but putting day-old chicks on wet grass is sure to result in a high mortality rate. Most chicks are kept in a brooder for at least three weeks. The brooder is usually set up indoors -- somewhere out of the wind, rain and cold. It also needs to be secure from predators: from coyotes and raccoons to weasels and even large mice, which have been known to kill small chicks.

On Sunday, March 28th, the chicks were four days old. We got a little break in the weather and decided to go for it. Here, you see Milan and his dad bringing the chicks out and placing them in the run. The white structure inside with the shiny-underside door is the "hover". It's essentially an outdoor brooder. There are heaters and a heat lamp affixed to its ceiling. The whole hover is attached to wires and suspended from the ceiling of the run. It can be raised and lowered for cleaning, and also to accommodate the chicks' height. We placed an old sheet of 4'x8' plywood underneath the hover and bedded it down with dry shavings. We put down all the shavings and turned on the heaters before leaving for church so that it would dry everything out and warm it up before putting the chicks inside.

So, if other operations leave their chicks in the brooder for 3 weeks or more, why were we so eager to get ours out, especially considering the weather?

First, our research found that to successfully pasture-raise chickens, especially this breed of chicken (Cornish X, or "Cornish Cross", the classic, white chicken raised for meat), you need to get them on pasture as soon as possible. Getting the chicks out on grass early helps them become comfortable on pasture and learn how to effectively scratch and peck. If they spend three weeks in a brooder, that's a lot of time their instincts for pecking and scratching aren't kicking in. It's also three weeks they don't get the nutritional benefits of legumes, grass, bugs and worms, and the physical benefits of room to run, exercise, and good, clean, Oregon air and sunshine. Well, maybe not the sunshine just yet...

Second, they were clearly a little crowded in the horse trough we set up for their initial homecoming. We were adding pine shaving bedding twice a day to deal with the smell and keep the chicks warm, dry and clean, but it was clear that unless we set up another trough situation, they were going to outgrow it really fast.

So, at four tender days of age, out they went. Milan's dad came and helped move them while Jack and I manned the camera. It sure is fun having a wide-eyed, interested-in-everything little tyke around. He daily reminds us to marvel at things we probably wouldn't notice or spend much time thinking about.

You can see from these photos that it was still pretty wet outside. We got the chicks out between rain showers. We knew they would be warm under the hover, but the weather the week following their outdoor placement definitely put the whole run and hover design to the test.