We have some more chickens here on the farm! We have exciting plans for laying hens, and we realized the 20 hens (well, 19 hens and 1 rooster) we have just wouldn’t be enough for all our plans. So, we got more birds! We picked up another two dozen laying hens. A couple should be laying soon, but most will start laying in a couple of months. Did you know that chickens don’t start laying until they’re 16 to 20 weeks old? That’s 4 to 5 months! That lag time is why we chose to get chickens that were already partially grown rather than starting with chicks.
New chicks eating
This picture shows some of the new chickens around the feeder. They were free ranging before, and I think the farmer just threw feed on the ground for them, so their first instinct was to peck at the food that fell from the feeder onto the ground, not to eat from the feeder. They have since learned to eat from the feeder! You may notice there’s a mix of breeds- there are leghorns, delewares, golden laced wyandottes, and red sex links.
To make sure these birds are healthy before introducing them to our flock, they are living in one of our “chicken tractor” pens for a couple of weeks. There is plenty of space for them in the pen- about 100 square feet for these 24 birds. Plus we’ll move the tractor to fresh ground every few days. Since these chickens have already been free ranging, they are great at pecking for bugs and eating forage!
New birds piled up for bed!
Here is a picture of the birds in the chicken tractor on their first night with us. Young chickens have a habit of sleeping in a dogpile, which is still amusing to me!
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