Summer Chicks ~ 7 Week Update

 

The chicks will be 7 weeks old this Thursday. I missed doing a timely update on them last week due to packing and getting ready to leave for our weekend camping/boating/letterboxing road trip up to Heron Lake State Park.

We did manage to move all 27 chicks outside into the temporary mini-coop within the main chicken coop, and the change and adjustment went seamlessly well.

The chicks seem to be content being outside with the extra space and after adding some empty feed bags for shade on the bird netting above, a larger feeder and an extra waterer, and rigging up an old dog igloo, with a nightlight and pine shavings, as a temporary house for them, they have happily settled right in.

I did have a few adjustments to make, though. At first I just duct taped the nightlight inside the dogloo, but it kept falling off, so I removed the vent cover off the top and inserted the lightbulb inside the perfectly sized hole on top, and it works perfectly. I later added a round metal bowl over the top of the lightbulb, so the chicks aren’t able to dislodge the light bulb by jumping up there.

 

The first night I put them out, they couldn’t figure out where to sleep and tried to bed down onto the dirt, until I added the nightlight and placed each of them inside the dog igloo.

Now they all head inside the dogloo as soon as it gets dark, which is what I want them to do when I release them into the larger main chicken coop. Well, I want them to walk up into the hen house at night, with the older hens, where there is also a nightlight, as well.

Our older hens aren’t terribly interested in the chicks, probably because most of them have “been there-done that”, but Matilda, the Buff Orpington is only a year old and is very curious about the chicks.

Hopefully she’s not up to no good. She and her Black Star girlfriend, who is also a year old, tend to pick on a few of the other chickens, especially Mrs. Cotton, the Japanese Silky hen.

The chicks are still very friendly and tame and it’s challenging not to step on them when I have to go into their mini-coop to refill water and food and check on them.

I was worried about sending the chicks outside because of all the things that could happen to them outside, but our coop is as safe as a coop can be with buried fence, lined with railroad ties and boulders. And the top is covered in fine bird mesh to keep out owls and hawks. They also have shade, water, food and lots of room to move around comfortably, so I feel confident that they will be just fine, but a part of me will always worry. It’s been fun raising these chicks, but with that comes a great responsibility for their care and safety, too.

I also think it’s going to be even more difficult than I imagined to choose which chicks to sell and which chicks to keep. I wish we could keep them all, but I don’t want them to live in crowded conditions and I don’t want to build a larger coop. Plus we had decided early on to sell some of the chicks, as laying pullets, to recoup our costs of buying and feeding them. So for now, we’ll not think about that, and just enjoy them as they are.

They’ve all feathered out and I love to admire their beautiful feather colors and patterns.

Faith, the broken-toed chick has a stunning feather pattern, I think.

As do the other Ameracaunas, too.

And the Silver-laced Cochins are beginning to show their lovely lacing patterns.

As are the Golden-laced Wyandottes.

One of Jen’s favorite chickens, Penguin, a Blue Wyandotte has really filled out and is a lovely shade of blue/grey.