Of the original 21 we hatched out, 17 have made it to this stage, and all are looking healthy and feathering up well. Of the four that didn't make it, three had deformities and one had an accident - we don't know what happened, but it seemed to have broken bones and I had to kill it as it was in pain.
But now the remaining 17 are getting BIG.
So now we're almost ready to begin building our chicken tractors for them - portable chicken coops that will fit over veggie beds and that can be moved not only from bed to bed but also around the property wherever anything needs cleaning up.
The prototype tractor is being built the Sunday after Easter here on the farm, and we'll be using that one to iron out any design flaws.
Then we'll be building a second tractor the following weekend, and using that to photograph the steps in building, and use it to put together a series of full instructions for the design, which we'll publish here at the farm site (free of charge!), as well as on the Dunedin Locavores Facebook group.
So if you're looking for a chicken tractor design, stick around and check ours out in a few weeks - it might just suit you.
I love building things, and it will be fun building our own tractors - hopefully they'll work well and be nice and robust. But in the meanwhile, the chicks just keep on growing! We can pretty much tell which are the males and which are the females now.
It's a few weeks yet before the girls start laying and the boys are ready for slaughter. They've got a lot of growing to do yet!
Have a lovely day!
3 comments:
They are looking great - a mix of Rhode Is and Barnevelders?? How many pullets and how many cockerels? We have been using chicken tractors for a while and find them great. We can see the improvement in the pasture that they've been moved across. Only problems we have is that they spill food on the ground and don't eat it all before the grass is all gone and its time to move the tractor, and don't make them too heavy! I can only more our large ones with a small trolley to help me. Also if you make them to fit a trailer, its easier to move them long distance if you ever need to. I look forward to seeing your design....
They're almost all purebred Barnevelders or Barnevelder crosses, with the exception of one Rhodie. The crosses are a real mix - I just grabbed a whole stack of eggs from our chooks, and our flock is a motley crew, so we'll be interested to see what the second gen turns out like! But the Dad was Sirius Black, a purebred Barnevelder roo.
Re, gender: I *think* we have 10 girls and 7 boys - at least, that's how I'm picking them at the moment. The boys will get the chop, and we'll stick with Sirius as our roo, as he's been terrific, and he's friendly.
Haven't figured out how many of the girls we'll keep, but some friends of mine want chooks, and we know we want to keep our old easter eggers (the blue egg layers) from our old flock), so we'll probably keep 5 or 6 of the newbies, and the rest will go to friends establishing flocks. We'll be doing a second incubation in Spring, to add to flocks around town.
OUr design for the tractor is based on being very lightweight, with lightweight wood frame and plastic mesh, only using metal mesh (fencing mesh) for the bottom. We're hoping to build the tractors for less than $100 apiece. Should be a real challenge - I'm looking forward to doing it too!
We'll be putting full plans up online for free - I decided to do this when I saw that there are NONE available for free download that are complete and affordable to make, and actually practicak for home builders to make with hand tools. We're hoping ours will be suitable for lots of people to make cheaply, helping people to get chooks on their properties and city plots, and further get cage eggs out of business! :)
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
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