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.
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!
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.
The chicks are now 16 days old, and have grown so much! It was too cold to get them out of the brooder and weigh them, but we’ll do that soon, on a nicer day. I did need to raise up one of the heaters because the larger chicks had to duck and crawl to get in. I kept the other one down low because we still have smaller chicks. Their colors are definitely changing and differing. We have lighter shaded chicks and darker chicks. The feed store said that their chick source guaranteed 95% females. This should be interesting.
The chicks are two weeks old! I’m now adding chick grit to their feed, and I found a large jar of brewer’s yeast with garlic that I thoughtfully bought months ago and apparently hid in the back of the pantry, so that is going into their feed too.
I gave them a little clump of dirt and grass from outside. They were extremely dubious at first, I was hoping to get some video of excited chicks, but they waited until I was gone to pick it apart. Oh well.
They are also starting to attempt perching. We’ve had a stick in their brooder since day 1, and they flutter on that a little, but today I found one perched on the side of the heater. Tigger likes to perch on my hand and walk up my arm. Which reminds me, I need to get files to dull their sharp little nails.
A little later my eldest was able to convince another chick to perch on the little practice perch I made from scrap wood.
Critters and Craft 