What has been going on this past week:

• Training with the automatic door. Obviously the morning is pretty easy, the door goes up and the chickens go out. At night it’s a different story. We have to make sure they are all in before the door goes down. Some get excited and try to keep coming back out to see us. This will be a work in progress.
• Since they have been outside we are filling the feeders less. They are getting enough food from bugs, grass and a few scraps we’ve thrown in. Today they are enjoying a whole cantaloupe cut into slices. We will see what is left over tomorrow morning.
• Based on the pictures we get of the chickens, the Barred Rocks and Orpingtons are the friendliest. The Leghorns and Reds are very skittish and hardly ever come up to us.
• We put some ash down in an area of the coop for a dust bath. It had all disappeared by the evening. I know a Leghorn was covered because when I saw her outside she shook and a whole bunch of dust flew off her body.
• I have been researching layer feed versus grower feed. What I have come up with is we need to switch to layer feed around week 18. If we start them too early the protein level is less in layer versus grower, and this could cause the bones to not be strong enough as well as kidney issues. We need to keep them on grower feed until they are ready to lay.  Leghorns can begin laying between week 18-20.

Last night Brock was putting the chickens in for the night and had quite a scene when he came in. A Red had flown to the top of the coop and was resting on the cord for the automatic door. He re-hooked the cord so this can never happen again. But we do know they can fly pretty high now!

We added some paper shreds to the coop for the deep liter method  and stirred it up real good. They have been dust bathing a lot. We plan to add a tire full of ash/sand. This will be their feather bath and will keep mites down.

They were able to be outside all day today. The Orpingtons were all out at the same time, while a Rock or Red would come out here and there. We have noticed multiple times that the 5 Orpingtons always sleep next to each other real close. The other 9 birds are roosting on the bar at night. Maybe they like each other, or this has something to do with the pecking order.

Joey has stayed out of the coop, but tries to nip at the chickens through the fence. This will continue to be a work in progress!

The chickens continue to grow and are now 8 weeks old. We mowed and threw in some grass clippings into the coop. We are contemplating doing the deep litter method for the chicken coop. It’s a way to keep smells down, cleaning easier and you end up with compost in the end. You basically throw grass clippings, leaves, pine needles down and the chickens live on it. This has to be at least 4-6 inches deep. When you go to clean the coop out you have fresh compost underneath. Our chickens scratched and searched for bugs for hours. We will see how this method goes.

Today we worked on tilling the land for a garden. We must have made a lot of noise because the chickens were huddled in a corner. The automatic door was up but no one would come out, so I opened the main door and out they came. We will have to keep working on making them go out the automatic door.

Brock tilling the new garden.

They were not wanting to come out today.

I have been reading up on feeding the chickens snacks, and today was a perfect day to give it a try. I took a handful of grapes out to the coop with me. They enjoyed the grapes and fought over them a little bit. This week is supposed to be beautiful so we will have them outside a lot.

Fighting over the grapes.

The Leghorns loved the grapes.

Hoping one would eat out of my hand.

This morning we had a big visitor in our yard. A turkey vulture was sunning himself, and probably smelled the dead raccoon in the hollow tree below him………I just had to share the pictures.

Onto the chickens: with the weather being over 60 degrees this week we decided to get the automatic door installed. Brock worked on installing it (we’ll post about that process later) and I painted it. While I was painting we opened the big door and let them explore the outside. They were very hesitant at first but eventually pecked around at the ground.

Automatic door is up.

Trying the ladder

Joey

Pecking

Outside

Barred Rock

RI Red

Rooster

The painted automatic door will soon be used.

The whole coop.

We took down the partition and gave them the whole coop now, minus the nesting boxes. We walled off the nesting box areas so they don’t start sleeping/pooping in them. We caught one laying down sleeping on the 2×4 roosting post so that’s promising. Hopefully she’ll teach the rest. As it warms up and they feather out more we’ll take away the heating lamp. And when they’re bigger we’ll start training them on the automatic coop door and unsupervised grazing in the run outside.

They’re starting to really stretch their wings and fly up and down to the roosting posts.

We went to check on the chickens this afternoon and we found a Barred Rock on the top roosting bar. She then flew to the top of the board that is separating the smaller area from the coop. We just watched her for awhile try to figure out how to get back down. Finally she flew back down to each bar and to the ground.

The chickens are definitely getting bigger and braver. They have figured out the hen hydrator and are eating up a storm. Hopefully the weather will be more spring like so we can open the door and have them explore outside.

Friends on their perch.

A leghorn getting brave.

Rooster

Grit treat

The chicks have gone through one 40 pound bag of chick starter. Everything I have read said 10 pounds of crumbles per week for 15 chicks, and I guess they were right! We ordered the automatic chicken door and received it the other day. We’ll do a more in depth post on that later. The only thing we need to do is cut the opening on the side of the barn and they will have a mini garage door that will go up and down on a timer. Soon they will be moved outside.

Automatic chicken coop door unpackaging

Timer and door opener motor

Roosters comb

Rooster close up

Barred Rock

Morning wake up call.