Moving Day

The chicks are no longer living in the lower level of the house.  The new brooder and chickens moved to the sub-garage on Saturday (1/22).  They seemed to adapt pretty quickly after the initial shock of being shut into their plastic bins for the 90 second journey into the cold.

I was initially concerned about the temps down there.  They were used to 70 degree temps in the house.  It was a consistent 40 degrees with a heater running in the garage.

Brooder set up

I rigged up the heat lamp, moved the heater next to the brooder, and blocked in the corner of the brooder where the chicks will hang out to try to keep the heat in.  I checked on them every couple of hours over the weekend.  The temp at the ground level is around 55 degrees in their corner. They huddle together when they aren't roaming around and scratching for food, jumping up on the roosts, and doing other chicken things.

With the move, all the chickens are now living together.  It was interesting to note that the two turkens hang out together, and the other 12 hang out together.  The only real exception so far is Mystery Chick.  It goes and hangs out near the turkens from time to time.  The turkens like to hang out in the right corner, opposite the heat.  I'm not a chicken behaviorist so I'm not going to try to understand what's going on.   As long as everyone is eating, drinking and not pecking at each other, then it's all good.