Category: chicken tractor

Crazy morning!

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, barclay, chicken tractor, chickens, farm, navi, pets2 Comments

This morning was exceptionally active, and much earlier than I’d have liked! Sorry, no pictures, for obvious reasons. It started off at 5am when I was woke up by the visiting roosters. The roosters are ones that were hatched out of eggs from my flock by a neighbor in town, and of course the roosters had to get out of town when they started crowing! Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find homes for them, and you can’t have that many roosters in one place without fighting, so they are scheduled to end up in the stewpot pretty soon, as soon as I can get the guy out to butcher them. They’ve had a good life so far at least, but their ultimate destiny is to be meat. This has been a terrible year for roosters, everyone is overrun with them. This lady got 4 roosters out of 6 eggs, our splash chicks appear to be 7 roos out of 10 chicks. It would be nice if it would have skewed towards hens instead!

So at 5am I got dressed and went out and caught the four of them from the pen I had left them in last night, put them in a dog crate, and put the crate in the chicken shed. Once they were in the dark shed they went back to sleep. Unfortunately when I walked over to the shed I spotted something else out of place – my four little splash chicks had escaped the chicken tractor and were running around the back field.

I spent the next 45 minutes trying to gently coax them back into the tractor, but ultimately ended up getting the net and catching two of them that way. The other two ran off and disappeared into the blackberry thicket. That was disappointing, because I am supposed to take them over Sunday to give to a friend who has their other 6 siblings, and I would like to take her all four. So I let the dogs out to play for a bit then went in and went back to bed.

A couple hours later I got up again and went outside and found the two stray chicks hanging out by the tractor, so I got the net and managed to get one of them, but the other one disappeared into the bushes again. Since I figured she’d be hiding for a couple hours after all that drama, I let the dogs out to play and got back to my morning chores.

A bit later I was in the kitchen preparing a crock pot full of carnitas, all chicken drama forgotten, when I heard squawking and fussing outside. I ran out to find Barclay had the chick pinned, and Navi was bounding around trying to help him. I’m sure he would have eaten the chick, he just hadn’t decided where to start! I ran over, telling the dogs how good they were for catching the chicken, and scooped her up and rushed her inside. Dave pushed the dogs out of the bathroom and we set her on the counter and had a look at her. Surprisingly, she seemed none the worse for wear, with just a little blood from a couple broken feathers. I put her back in the tractor and she seemed happy to see the other chicks, and when I checked on them an hour later they were all running around like they hadn’t had the adventure of their lives this morning!

After all that, I was happy to grab Barclay and go to work where it is peace and quiet!

_

Chicks and Mama hen

On By stefrobrtsIn 2010chicks, chicken tractor, chickens2 Comments

Mama hen and chickies are doing great. She takes them out and shows them how to scratch around for bugs, then when they get cold they snuggle under her with just a head sticking out here and there. They look so cozy!

It’s funny how hens lay their eggs and never give them a second thought until something clicks with them to go broody. Then they will set those eggs until they hatch, and raise their chicks with great devotion, fluffing up to scare off predators, until the chicks are big enough to look after themselves. Then they kind of forget about them and go back to doing their own thing again. It’s the chicken circle of life 🙂

Unloaded some roosters

On By stefrobrtsIn chicken tractor, chickens3 Comments

 
I sent four baby roosters off to their new home today. I advertised them on the chicken list for free and had someone who absolutely wanted them, but never emailed me back. So I put them on CL and had three people interested within an hour, so I wrote back to the first, no response, wrote to the second, no response, wrote to the third and she wanted to come right over and get them. THEN the first person responded (two days after I initially contacted her), and I had to tell her it was too late. People on CL will jump at anything that’s free, but getting them to follow through can be a challenge. The annoyance of finding them new homes masked the sadness at getting rid of them. They were beautiful birds, but there’s no way to keep six roosters and eight hens, nobody would be happy.

 
Here’s one of the pretty hens we’re keeping for future egg production. 

This is Beautiful the friendly buff hen, and Copper, the young cochin rooster. I decided to keep him for the moment because I like his buff color and feathered feet, and his personality is very mellow. In the background is the Blue Cochin…

He is a really spectacular bird! Very mellow, doesn’t seem to bother anyone, never harasses me. So I think I’ll keep him and the buff cochin boy and see how they get along with the girls. In reality I don’t need any roosters, my girls would be perfectly happy without them, but I kind of like the cock-a-doodle-do-ing, and seeing them strutting around.

 
The buff cochin boy of course is Penny’s boy. Penny is looking good. She finished her moult and is covered in beautiful new feathers.

But she still looks like a bowling ball with a head! I love her personality. She is cranky and cross with the other chickens, but they aren’t too scared of her because she’s not real fast on those big feathered feet. She makes a lot of noise to let everyone know to get out of her way! I don’t think she’d be welcome in a suburban backyard – she lets the whole neighborhood know what she’s up to.

 
Over in the chicken tractor Big Red’s chicks are growing fast, going through a lot of food, and producing a lot of poop. So I have to move the tractor every couple days to fresh grass. I’m about ready to put them back in the coop with the rest of the hens so they have more space to forage. We’ll see if Mom insists on teaching them to be escape artists. 

And you know what’s waiting for me in there: more baby roosters! Can you spot the baby roosters? The easy ones are in the back, one on the far left, and one under mom’s head. You can tell by the development of their red combs. The boys already have more comb than Mom! The girls have none at all.

But whatever happened to that runt?

Still alive, still runty (compared to his big brother). You’d think a bantam snuck in and laid an egg! I really didn’t think he would make it, but he’s growing – slowly!

After I posted this I decided to go out and move Big Red and her chicks into the main chicken area. It was easy enough to let them out of the tractor, and they were so happy they were jumping around, flapping and pouncing on each other. Leading them to the chicken area was a bit tougher. I used some scratch to get them moving, but they weren’t too interested in following. I tried herding them, but the chicks would scatter and then Mom would get mad and start running around to gather them up. It took a while but I finally got them all in the pen. They seemed very happy to have all that room, and were scratching around and enjoying the windfall pears in the orchard/chicken pen. Now I just have to wait to see if they stay put!

Around the chickenyard

On By stefrobrtsIn chicken tractor, chickens2 Comments

We had a little incident yesterday with our ‘escape artist’ chickens. I didn’t notice one had got out and we went out with the dogs, and Dioji ran into her, so he and Barclay cornered her under the bushes and it was all I could do to hold Dioji back. Meanwhile Barclay had her by the tail and she was screaming and squawking, and Jack was trying to get in on the action. Dave heard the commotion and came out to help, and I put her in the extra chicken tractor in the other part of the backyard away from the dogs, then I added another runaway this morning, and her sister who was broody and needed to get off the nest anyway. So I have three hens in this tractor. Hopefully there won’t be any more dog incidents.

Inside the orchard fence, the other tractor is a nursery.

Big Red and her ten happy chicks. Occasionally one escapes and runs around the tractor peeping because it can’t figure out how to get back in. So I’ll catch them (a big fishing net helps) and put them back. I’m hoping they’ll outgrow the holes they are sneaking out through soon!

Baby rooster on the chair

Working on his cock-a-doodle-doos 🙂

Crazy bird on the loose!

On By stefrobrtsIn chicken tractor, chickens1 Comment

Big bird has gone completely off his nut for some reason. After the attack yesterday perhaps he thought he had won the battle and was feeling pretty proud of himself (in those two cells he rubs together and calls a brain). Today he sealed his fate.

I gave away the baby turkeys today. I was getting worn out keeping up with them, and I was concerned about what was going to happen when they outgrew the tractor, which was going to be soon. So I advertised them on the chicken list and a lady came over and gave me two bags of chicken feed and a bag of scratch for them, which made me happy.

Since she is a chicken expert, I mentioned what Big Bird had done and she said she would help me clip his spurs while she was here. So we went into the coop and he walked up to her and jumped up to kick her and she caught him in mid jump. We took him to the garage and trimmed his spurs and ground them down with the dremel. Did his beak too. Then let him go, and she thought that should have put him in his place a bit. After she left I went around back to put some scratch out and get everyone back into the pen area, and he walked up and kicked me, so I kicked him away. He picked himself up and came after me again! I kicked him away again, now in self-defense! And he jumped up and came after me again! That time I kicked him about five foot away and really knocked him for a loop, and when he got up he gave me the eye, but he finally walked away. I don’t know what got into him. So now I have a big bruise on my knee where he got me with one of his kicks!

I spent the day working outside the chicken pen putting chicken wire around the bottom so the chickens will be contained, and I’m putting mama hen and her chicks in there with the rest of the chickens, so everyone will be together. After dark I moved mama hen in, and moved Big Bird out. He was easy to catch because he was sleeping! I took him out and stuck him in the empty chicken tractor and that’s where he will stay until he leaves. He’s worn out his welcome, and we can’t trust him not to hurt someone. He’ll be gone by next weekend one way or the other.

Turkeys are out, chicks are in

On By stefrobrtsIn chicken tractor, chickens, turkeysLeave a comment


The turkey poults have made the big move from the protection of the heated brooder to the cold harsh reality of life in a chicken tractor. I was worried about them the first night, and for some reason, just because they are turkeys I guess and not very bright, they chose to sleep on the unprotected end of the tractor in the grass instead of the sheltered end with a perch. But they survived, and by the second night they had figured out how to snuggle up together on the perch.


In the other tractor is black mama hen with her NINE chicks! I thought there were only eight, but now that they are running around more we counted nine. I would love to let all these little guys loose to run around the yard and scratch in the fresh grass, but the cats would go after the chicks. So everyone stays safely in the tractor.


As you can see from the little feather-legged chick in front, we have two cochins in this brood. I hope at least one is a hen!

Black hen

On By stefrobrtsIn chicken tractor, chickens1 Comment
Black Hen says ‘Nothing to see here, go away..”

Little tiny chick voice “Yeah, what she said, go away!”

Mama hen is very protective. I can only see the chicks from a distance. They do seem to be enjoying being outside in the tractor compared to the brooder where there was no room to move around!

Shuffling chicks

On By stefrobrtsIn chicken tractor, chickens, Copper, turkeys1 Comment

Yesterday black mama hen started hatching her eggs. I’ve seen 4 or 5 chicks so far, but she’s keeping them hid. They are in a brooding box in the shed, and it’s not big enough for them, so I need to move them out to a chicken tractor so they can scratch around in the grass. However the tractors are full. Time to shuffle some chickens.

So I took the tractor with 7 chicks


And added two of the chicks from the tractor that only has three.


The remaining chick I put in a dog carrier so I can work with taming him. He is Penny’s only chick out of the first set of chicks we hatched. He is a Buff Cochin, and he has feathered feet and legs. I think he’s super cute, so I thought it would be fun to work with him a bit. I’ve heard you can clicker train chickens, so I thought I’d give it a try. His name is Copper.


In the turkey brooder the turkeys are getting HUGE! They are almost as tall as the gallon milk jugs I feed them out of.

Because the turkeys are getting too big to stay in the brooder much longer, I am giving the extra chicks to one of the boys in our 4H llama club who is also in chicken 4H. That way the new mom and chicks will have one tractor, and the turkeys will have the other, and I’ll be DONE with raising chicks for the season.

Chicks are feathering out

On By stefrobrtsIn chicken tractor, chickens, turkeys5 Comments


The chicks are getting their real feathers now, so they aren’t cute fluffy chicks anymore, now they are gangly, scruffy-looking teenagers!


It looks like this is Penny’s only chick in the whole batch, at least it’s the only one with feathered legs.

These chicks are a week younger than the other batch, but they are feathering out too. They’re about four weeks old now.

Mom is still very protective.

We moved the tractors to a new grazing area today. They are tucked under the trees next to the chicken pen/orchard.

The spot where they were sitting is well picked over and fertilized, I’m guessing the grass will recover pretty quickly.

Meanwhile in the coop the third game hen mix has gone broody, so I gave her a nest box and ten eggs to sit on. So in 21 days we should have some more chicks.

The turkeys are doing fine, growing wing feathers and eating like little piggies! I’ll get some pics of them again soon.