Pleasantly Palatable: Chickens

March 25, 2011

...As I was posting and searching on the BYC forum I learned that my waterer was at a low height, too low in fact that our chicks were having to bend down to get to their water source. One individual on the forum mentioned that I should raise it up so the nipples are about at eye-level for the first two days and then raise it slowly as they grow.

This is a before shot of our chicks before the adjustment.

See how low it is?

Here's a shot of the waterer at eye-level.

And here's one of our chicks enjoying the water.

March 24, 2011
Happy Birthday Kennedy! She's turning seven today and thought I would throw that out there before I start talking about our chickens. It's amazing how she has grown up so fast. She makes life a little easier to live. Thanks for being such a great little girl (but you've got to stop growing up!)

Yesterday I receive my push in nipples for my gravity fed watering system for our chicks. I first learned about the system on BackYardChickens.com, which is a really good resource for anyone wanting to learn more about raising chickens (trust me it's a really good site, I didn't know anything about raising them.) Anyways, I'm totally stoked about it because it eliminates the other waterer that took up way too much space in their brooder, plus it will get rid of anymore messes. There's no way they can kick the pine shavings into the little bucket.

How it works: The nipples are held in by a small plastic grommet that rests snuggly in a 11/32" hole. I had a drill bit just slightly bigger than the 11/32" required bit, but I wrapped each nipple with teflon tape and it worked well. It sealed up those tiny little gaps and there is absolutely no leakage.

What did my chicks think about it? They love the extra space in the brooder and it took them less than five seconds to figure out what those colorful, shiny new toys were in their home. Once one of the chicks pecked at the nipple and got some water, the others were all intrigued and followed suit.

Here's a shot of the sweet gravity-fed waterer with the push-in nipples..
Don't you just love Shamu staring back at you?
This was a test run to see if one nipple worked. Once one figured
it out they all wanted to try, but it got tight and they were all pecking
at it so I thought, what the heck, I'll put three nipples on the bucket.

March 23, 2011
A few weeks ago I got word from one of my brothers that he bought some chicks. I didn't know at the time why anyone would buy them but then looked into it and thought how cool it would be to go out in the morning and collect the fresh eggs.

Well, a week later I found myself surprising my kids with them. When I pulled up into the parking lot at Cal-Ranch my son Hunter and daughter Kennedy both said, "This doesn't look like a fun place!"

It was fun after they knew we were going to buy some chicks! Surprise! Kennedy's jaw dropped open and she said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

We brought them home and put them in a large Tupperware box and put their feeder and waterer in the box along with some newspaper. (We now use pine shavings. The chicks like to scratch around in it--it also cuts down on the smell :) ). We also put the heat lamp up and watched them in their new brooder. They love it!

Before they can go outside we have to wait five to six weeks until they are 'feathered-out.' Then they can be moved into their new home. For their coop, I'm going to convert an old doghouse we own into a coop with a run out in the backyard beneath the deck. Check out the pics below:

Aren't they so cute! Our kids named them Sunflower (Buff Orpington or BO), Snowflake (Buff Orpington), Red Head (Rhode Island Red or RIR), Fluffy (Rhode Island Red)

The Buff Orpington's are the light 'buff' colored chicks and the Rhode Island Red's are the, yep, you guessed it--the red ones.

They are getting tired. You can see head bobbing towards the floor!

They made a mess of the brooder so that gave me an idea :)

I put a mixture of shredded newspaper and pine chips in their brooder. (As you can see they like to make a mess of their waterer too.)

Also there's a new addition: a perch! This will help them practice roosting. It also gives them a place to sleep so they don't have to lay in their own poop while they sleep :)

I got tired of the newspaper and went with the pine shavings, it's much better.

Snowflake (the small BO not on the perch) had a difficult time getting up on the perch to roost. She's the runt of the four. So I made some arrangements.