Preparing for Chickens

Chickens should be here this week!

Yesterday we spent a good amount of time at the barn picking the brains of Dan and Becky at Green Acres Farm, our chicken experts, and then getting supplies at Tractor and Supply Company in Enfield, CT.

We’ve designed our coop and should start building in April, hopefully it will be done by May. My goal is to have the chicken tractor built by 5 weeks so they can go outside without us having to watch them.

Quotes from the Farmer

We are nearing the end of the renovation of our kitchen and the countertops should be in shortly. This has taken much of our efforts away from the farm, and has completely stopped our cooking for 2 week! It was important for us to have a nice open and accommodating kitchen. Once we start bringing in lots of fresh food from outside we want to have the counter space and storage space inside. We also need to have the prep space for canning and preserving.

As for chickens, once they arrive we will officially be in spring mode. Coop construction, seedling starting, garden preparations can all be started as soon as the ground is workable. With the mild winter there shouldn’t be too much frost or frozen ground to deal with. Hope the weather holds out so we can get outside and start our projects.

For the first 4 weeks you keep the chicks inside (we’ll keep them in an open top cardboard box in the basement), taking them outside if its above 50 and sunny during the day. After 2 months you can transfer them to the coop. Transfer them during the night so the move doesn’t disrupt them too much.

They grow quick and after just 4 weeks there appearance is set, at 12 weeks they will have their adult appearance. We will make sure to handle them as much as possible until then because between 12-14 weeks is the most important time to get them used to being touched and handled. We want to have friendly chickens!

As far as care goes, we’ve been told that there isn’t much to do. Their waterer and feeder is auto fill, we will have to make sure the container part is full but we don’t have to feed them everyday. We should clean the container about once or twice a week just to make sure it stays clean. We will change their litter every couple of weeks or as needed. For the first couple of days they stay on newspaper, and we will make sure that is clean so it doesn’t get too slippery and the third day we can put wood shavings down. Becky told us that you don’t want to start them in wood shavings because there is a possibility they will peck at it and choke accidentally.

We bought organic feed. I’m hoping that the grain feed will just be supplemental. I would like to feed them mostly kitchen scraps and fresh greens. At four days we can start them on finely chopped fresh greens and finely chopped grains like barely, wheat and oats.