It took a couple days, but the chicks figured out the new feeder. It is a hanging feeder, but I needed to put a block underneath it to keep it from perpetually spinning.
I gave the chicks more dirt and grass. Here is a chick’s eye view.
They got it
Category: chickens
120 toes
Faverolles have five toes on each foot. I have twelve chicks. I did not do the math when I decided to clip their sharp little nails. I did not manage to clip every nail (I was going to file, but the nails are still so little and the toes are kind of floppy), but I did manage to only expose one quick. 1 out of 120 is not bad. I quickly (#punintentional) put some “no-pick” purple goo on it and the chick was fine. And all of them have at least been exposed to the process. Phew.
Enrichment
The chicks enjoyed their second time outside even more than the first! And they were even more excited about the grass and dirt I put in their inside area; not afraid of it at all, quite the opposite.
They are also exploring the perch, so I made them another one using some 2x4s.
Outside!
What a big day! We decided the best way to give the chicks a bigger enclosure was to line the old dog cage with chicken wire. We put pine shavings down inside and moved them in during the morning. They seem to appreciate the larger space. We rigged some scrap 2×4 together and hung it from the rafters and added metal eyes to hang the water and food jars in the new space. We had to adjust the height a bit, but it seems to work without too much swinging.
The chicks also had their first outside time. They seemed to enjoy running on the dirt and picking at leaves. We did another step for training our dog and had him lay down by the cage while the chicks moved around.
He could see them this time, but he did well not freaking out. And we protected the chicks from our outside cat, who thought she was going to get a snack!
Oops
While we cleaned out the brooder, we had a trial run on a larger space for the chicks. We took an old dog enclosure and put it in the corner of the coop and put a couple of chicks in at first to see if they could escape. They seemed OK, so my eldest sat with them and we put them all in there.
Shortly after we shot the video the chicks started to pop through the gaps! Pop, pop, pop! We had a scramble getting the chicks rounded up and putting up barriers to keep them contained. We should have shot video of that, but we were much more concerned about escaped chicks!
I was able to get the old brooder quickly cleaned out while my eldest herded chicks. Then we put the chicks back without further incident, but we will have to rethink the new space.
Critters and Craft 