Raising Chickens: Week Three

The third week of our chicken raising experiment began with the addition of our second flock! We have nine Rock Cornish Cross chicks. These are the chickens that are bred for growing the fastest, and we have already seen how that translates into increased appetites. The day after we got them I went down into the basement to check them out and was surprised to see their feeder almost empty. In fact the chicks were reaching so far to get food their entire heads and necks were inside the feeder! That quickly woke me up to the fact that a flock of nine (50% bigger than our first flock of 6) made up of these super growing chickens are going to need a lot more attention. We now check their food and water at least twice daily.

Meanwhile, our first flock is continuing to grow and needs to be moved out of their Weedeater box. So I am now frantically building a portable chicken coop (often called a chicken tractor, or in the UK a chicken ark). I'll post later on Building A Portable Chicken Coop.