Rural Gardening: Regrets, 0 by jeaucamom

jeaucamom wrote:
This has definitely been a learning experience for me!! I would have started earlier in the summer. We got our first chicks at the end of August and just when it was getting time to move them outside we had an unusual cold snap. The enormous dog kennel we had inside was too small for all of them and our transition coop we planned to move them into while building our big coop was not weather proof. So we moved the older more feathered out chicks outside and left the little ones inside. If we had started in spring, we would have had lots of beautiful weather to move them all outside. And of course our new luxury condo for the chickens will be done!

Which leads me to lesson number two. We started with 6 chicks, 3 barred rocks and 3 rir. All the same age and size. A few died and two were roosters that went back to the feed store. That would have been REALLY smart to stop there, but NOOOOOOOOO. We added 8 more a few at a time of different sizes and ages. Apparently it was MIRACULOUS how well they all adjusted to one another. Until now. The six big ones got put out and then 3 more got put out but the last three stayed inside for 2 weeks until the weather changed yesterday. We put them out yesterday and the three youngest/smallest are hanging out together and not really integrating with the others. When they are out of the coop in the yard, they run around together and lay on top of each other in the dust and have a great time together, but in the coop they go way off in a corner together. Hope that gets better!!

And lastly, we got all our chicks from the local feed store and my golden laced Wyandotte is definitely crossed with a barred something or other. Her chest and some of the tips of her back feathers have white barring on them. And my blue cochin is definitely silver, not blue!

So.... we will be ordering directly from a hathchery, all at the same time and there wil be no replacing of chicks next year!!!!