Chickens

Thursday 31 January the chicks and ducklings, were officially 9 days old, its quite amazing how rapidly they grow in a week. One duckling did not survive, so we are down to 62 chicks and 11 ducklings (2 were picked up by a friend). We are purposing to weigh them each week to see their growth, and also to weigh their food, so Laura can track the cost of raising them. In the first week they had consumer 24 lbs of feed, and the average chick weight was 0.27lb and the ducklings 0.33lbs. We also cleaned their brooder box out this week, and put new paper and shavings down. The ducklings been ducks tend to love the water a little too much and make a huge mess, so they have a puppy pee pad under their water to stop the shavings from getting totally drenched.

Chicks eating and huddling

chicken and duck for size comparison this week - 9 days old

Hard to get this girl to be still for a picture

Cleaning the brooder box

Laura actually designed and built this awesome brooder box herself, its 64sqft and full collapsable so it can be stored for future use.