#raisingchicks

We’ve had the chicks 3 weeks yesterday. They are still adolescents, but have grown longer tails and wings. We drop the temperature to 75F under the heat plates and around 70F in the room today. On Wednesday

Last night we turned the milkhouse heater on in the cold room to warm it up. We also set the 5 gallon water bucket in there with the electrolytes in it. I got up at 4AM this morning as usual and went up

This year we are using a new brooding system. These are rigid heat pads or plates. They have legs to hold them at the height of the chicks’ backs. There is very little fire risk with this system. Our old

When we decided to start raising broiler chicks, we needed a very safe place to do it. Our predator load here is very high, easier to say what we don’t have: wolves, wolverines, lynx. If we wanted to have

When I was growing up, we had a bantam flock. It free ranged all over the neighborhood because in the 1960’s the only predators were the neighborhood dogs. The hens would go broody and hatch chicks wherever