The big event this week was moving the baby chickens out of Kat’s room and onto my front porch. (Which is the same porch we use as a kidding parlor in the spring).
Look how big these chickens have gotten! They love to perch on top of their food and water containers.
For the last five days I was in Colorado, visiting my brother. This completely disrupted our way of cleaning the chicken enclosure. Before I left, I would get inside, catch each individual chicken, and hand them to Jan, who’d put them in a bucket. Then, once all the chickens were in the bucket (seriously, no KFC jokes here) we could clean their enclosure, replace the puppy pads, and give them new food and water.
But, that was a two-person method. With me gone, Jan just rolled up the puppy pads without taking the chickens out, and spread new ones, just shooing the chickens to the side she wasn’t working on.
When I returned, the chickens were so big, we didn’t think they’d all fit in one bucket any more. So, on moving day we put twelve chickens in the first bucket - the pink one, that they were used to. That worked great. But, when we started putting the remaining chickens in the other bucket, which was just the same as the pink one, only blue, they all started trying to hop out!
I reached down to catch a new hen, and when I stood up to hand her to Jan, there were two chickens perched on the side of the bucket! Jan had to hold her hands over the bucket to keep the chickens from trying to jump out while I caught the rest. Then, we had to carry the bucket to the front porch very carefully, each of us carrying with one hand, and preventing escapees with the other.
When we got the buckets to the porch, we put a sheet over them to prevent escaping. Still, I was amazed. It was as if they had tried to escape the pink bucket when they were tiny babies, and it couldn’t be done. So, they just didn’t try again. But the blue bucket was a whole different world to them.
I suspect that they could escape their enclosure now. They certainly can fly over their heater at this point. But, so far, they haven’t tried to escape, and I think it may be the pink bucket phenomenon playing out in our favor.
Once the chickens were out on the porch in their covered buckets, we went back to Kat's room, dismantled their enclosure, and carried it onto the porch, where we reassembled it. Here it is, all ready for the return of the chickens:
Those are stall pellets sprinkled all over the puppy pads. We've been very careful to make an uneven surface for them to walk on. Raising them on a flat surface like a tile floor would have ruined their feet.
When we got all the chickens settled into their relocated enclosure, we heard barking. Look at these good dogs just outside my porch door! Clark is the taller one, Vera is the one on the left. They were extremely interested in the chickens. We are extremely interested in keeping them away from the chickens. They know that they’re supposed to guard our goats, but we’re not sure whether they would know that these chickens are also beings they need to guard, or whether they might think they were an extra delightful snack.
This porch is a great transitional spot for the chickens. We have to move them again in two weeks. At that point they’ll be going to their chicken coop, which we will probably finish building this weekend. We’ve worked on it (off and on) throughout the spring, and all it needs now is a window and perches.
But, the porch is much more like being outdoors. For one thing, it’s been so hot here that we never opened the windows in Kat’s bedroom. So the baby chicks had never heard the other chickens, or the goats, or the dogs. But, the porch has windows that are permanently open, so they’re getting used to the soundscape of our farm.
On the other hand, that porch is probably the hottest place on our farm. It has a bank of western windows, and the greenhouse effect is enormous. We put a thermometer out there, and it’s regularly over 110 degrees in the afternoons. We're not sure whether these babies would survive that kind of heat.
Jan hung several shade cloths over the windows, and opened the window from my house to the porch and installed an exhaust fan so that my air conditioning would go out to the chickens. But we’re going through another period where the daily high temperature is over 100 degrees. So, we figured out a way to make the cold air from my house go directly down into the chicken enclosure. Look:
I know, it’s kind of jury-rigged, but it works! We have a thermometer inside their enclosure, and one just outside, and there are several degrees difference between the two. These chicks just have to make it through two more hot days, and the weather will break.
Meanwhile, several of them have begun to let us pet them, so our life with chickens is good!
