cluck, cluck

early this morning, after checking for damage from last night’s thunder storms, farmer root and I are taking a drive to put some eyes on our friend daniel’s chicken operation, darby farms.  two facts bring us here:  first, dan raises the best chickens.  second, root and I have one hundred and fifty baby chickens arriving from a hatchery sometime in the next three days, and no experience to speak of.  stack that against dan’s quality of pasture birds, and it’s easy to see why we want to pay him a visit before designing and building our brooder today.

a brooder is what you use to heat the baby chicks during the first few (or many) weeks of their lives before they are stout enough to withstand life on the pasture.  “in natural brooding, this heat is provided by the chick’s mother, a broody hen.”^  while some resources recommend five, or six, or more weeks of life inside the brooder house, dan’s birds are out to pasture on average at just two to three weeks of age, depending on the weather.  this standard will be our goal as well.

flying by the seat of our pants, we are.  the chickens are shipping today, and we are building their brooder today.  not ideal, but good enough.  baby chicks in a few days, brooder today.  gotta keep moving forward.

^success with baby chicks, by Robert plamondon