Moving the Broiler Chicks to the Pasture Coop - June 11, 2019 @goldenoakfarm

This is why the waterer leaks….

Can you spot the rooster?

Rooster helping take the hanger rope out….

While I finally got the winter clothes put away on Tuesday morning and my helper friend made butter, my husband was out mowing the grass as low as he dared and setting up the pasture coop.

The rain was scheduled to move away by noon and it was windy, so it would dry out fast. So we decided to move the chicks out.

As you can see, we have a rooster. Barred Rock roosters have reverse coloring, so they are easy to spot. Not sure if it was the only one, as we’ve lost 4 chicks from the 95 we started with. But we got another accurate count and we still have 91. He just had to help taking out the waterer rope. He’s one bold, bossy booger already at nearly 6 weeks.

We got the netting and it’s holding 3200 volts on its dedicated line from one charger. The fox fence outside it is holding 5000 volts on a separate charger.

My husband set the netting up so he can move the coop 3 times before he has to move the whole set-up.

We have chicken transport cages but we’ve found the chicks are much calmer in the dark of the box. They are still small enough we easily got 30 in the box at a time.

All 91 chicks in the corner

Even though we’ve been giving them grass and things every day for weeks, that’s a very different thing from having enough to stand on. They aren’t sure they like this much….

Their amenities are 2 yellow feeders, 1 orange waterer, a black grit tray, and a white duster tray. They’ve got 48’ of roosts. We closed the back as it was so windy and they aren’t used to bad drafts yet.

Besides being worried about the rats getting thro the netting, I’m a bit worried about the 49F temps forecast for tonight and the strong wind we are having. They are just feathered out, but haven’t had to deal with this cold before. I hope they all find the roosts as it will get them out of the low drafts from the bottom venting.

They will stay in this coop for about 3 weeks until they are big enough to be in the big pen. It will move to clean grass every day in the morning for about 2 weeks, then twice a day for the last week.

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