Chicks!

Yesterday we had the pleasure of driving 74 chicks home.  50 red rangers for our meat experiment, and 24 new layers.  It’s good to have chickens back.  It’s like the world has become right again.  I’ve been missing my hens sorely these last weeks, and I cannot wait for these ones to get big and make me some eggs.

There seems to have been some sort of miscommunication between Knut and I about where these chicks were to brood.  He doesn’t remember any of my comments on this besides what I said on the phone yesterday.  It’s been a busy time getting in the fields again.  He’s been out planting from 6am to midnight almost every day.

We had these old horse troughs in the barn that we’ve used before as brooders, but he and his cousin had built this huge moveable structure for the yard to keep the meat birds in.  I asked him a few weeks ago if we should use 1 or 2 of the horses’ troughs to brood the chicks, and he just shrugged and thought we should use the big moveable structure.

I told him that was silly.  First off, they used this huge wire netting, which I thought was too wide to put on anyway for full sized birds.  I don’t think it’s predator-proof enough.  They shrugged, because of course, I’m a city girl.  What would I know.  But put chicks in there?  Well that’s just silly.  The openings in the wire are as big as the chicks.  What could it possibly keep in?

The morning the chicks were to arrive, Knut went down to the barn to set it all up for me.  I thought that was kind.  He was going to set up and check the warming lamps and lay down some bedding.  Great.

However, when I brought the box of 74 chickens down to the barn from the van, I was shocked to see the new movable structure set up as a brooder.  This would not work at all.  So I called Knut at work, and said, “Um, this isn’t going to work as a brooder.  It won’t keep chicks in.”  He assured me it would.  I’m looking at the chicks in my hands, and looking at the wide wire netting, and thinking he’s crazy.  He reassures me again.

So the kids and I start taking the chicks out of the box, one by one.  We dip their beaks in the water, and set them under the warming lamps one by one.  With Silje, David and I all at work, it goes pretty fast.  About 30 chicks into it, David notices that the chicks have gone exploring.  Keep them in?  They just walked right out of the brooder.  They didn’t even need to climb.  30 chicks head in all different directions of the barn.

So Silje and David are put on chick patrol to try to keep them in, and I grab some hay bales in the corner, and line the whole perimeter with a wall of hay bales.  There’s not enough of it, so I take some large boards, and finish up covering the corner.  We finish getting all the chicks out of the box and into this make-shift brooder.

I called Knut up and said his idea didn’t work.  He suggested that we take some string and weave it in and out of the netting to make it more dense.  Since that sounded like the most tedious job ever, I told him the hay would work just fine.  We’ll leave it at that.

Knut was good enough to feed and water them before he went to work today.  He had closed off half of the structure to keep the chicks in a smaller space for now, and he said a couple of them had somehow got behind the boards and into the half that had no bedding, light, food or water.  He didn’t have time to chase them, so I went down there and rescued 2 from the dark side.  They were shivering in the dark and huddled together.  After only a minute under the heat lamp, though, they perked up and started eating and drinking.  We’ll have to keep an eye on that, but I think after a day or two of growth, they won’t be small enough to sneak back over to that side again.

We’ve had trouble in the past of chicks just dying for no reason.  These ones look so great, though!  They’re energetic and all of them eating and drinking so well.  I’m really excited how healthy each one of them looks.

Although the kids and I just want to sit down there and hold them all day long, we have chores and school to do.  I think I know where they’re going to spend every moment of free time this week!