New Digs for the Chicks

  The entry room where the chicks live now was getting very stinky, and I suggested that we needed to change their litter -- again!  When Kevin started that process, he discovered their cardboard box was, well, disgusting. So out it went, and Kevin constructed this new habitat for them made out of chicken wire and tarp.   It is somewhat bigger and we also purchased new food and water dishes for them. They are growing SO fast.

  The process of moving them out of the old box and getting them into the new box took some time -- and the time was lengthened after Kevin cut his finger quite badly.  The smallest chick apparently had a very hard time with the process because he started failing on Sunday afternoon and was dead by evening.  Poor chickie.  Our chicken book says that most groups of chicks have at least one runt, and runts usually die because something is wrong with them.  So it was sad but not unexpected.

  Kevin and I have spent a fair amount of time pondering the next step for the chicks. We want them out of the house soon as they are smelly.  We thought about our sun room, but after putting a thermometer out there yesterday we realized the temperature swings are too dramatic in there.  Sometimes it is cold, sometimes it gets positively hot when the sun is shining in.  That will be hard on the chicks.  So the current plan is to move them into the garage, which is cold but consistently cold.  We'll purchase another heat lamp and we think we can keep their new home warm enough.  By the end of the week they should be happy in 85 degree temperatures.

  They are growing fast and their feathers are developing.  In 2 or 3 weeks we hope to move them outside into a coop that Kevin will build.  We'll have the heat lamp out there for chilly nights, and they should be large and feathery enough to do well. We hope.

  This whole experiment has been slightly less well planned than is ideal. In retrospect, we probably should have waited until mid March to buy chicks as the temperatures outside are still cold at night at the end of March, when this batch will be ready to move outside.  We got them early (in February) because we didn't want Butchering Time to Coincide with Baby Time.  Our little boy is due in May so we want to butcher the chickens before that.