The first broiler chicks have arrived to mark the official start of the 2018 season!
We always get excited to hear those first chicks arrive. They get shipped to us from the hatchery and we pick them up at the post office. (Chicks can do this because the egg yolk provides them enough food to sustain them for 2 days after birth.) We bring them home and put them in a brooder that we start at 98.5 degrees to keep the chicks warm.
Of course it’s not long before their cold tolerance goes up and they’re ready to go out on the grass. We move them out into their portable outdoor shelter when they’re 2-3 weeks old.
This open-bottomed shelter lies on top of the pasture allowing the birds to eat a fresh smorgasbord of greens each day. The shelter affords protection from predators and harsh weather while providing plenty of sunshine, fresh air and that oh-so-important grass. We move the shelter to a fresh patch of pasture every day and feed and water the chickens twice daily.
Ethan fashions the frame of a new portable chicken shelter. The design is open-bottomed, and lightweight so we can move it daily.
The broilers eat an estimated 20% of their diet in fresh greens. The remainder of their diet is a balanced energy/protein ration that includes cracked non-GMO corn and roasted non-GMO soybeans from a farmer we know, oats kelp, and minerals. While picking through droppings left by the herds and “sanitizing” the pasture, the chickens put down an estimated 300 lbs per acre of natural nitrogen fertilizer and important trace minerals.
Portable chicken shelters on the hillside. The chickens have a quickly visible impact on the grass.
When the chickens reach about 10 weeks old, we hand process them right here on the farm.
We’ve come a long way since our first batch with our hand-made feather plucker and our scalding pot that resembled a witch’s kettle. Even with the help of friends and the miracle plucker, it took us 3 days to finish. Even so, we marked it as a victory. We had done it – and enjoyed it!
We kept most of the birds from that first batch, but sold a few to interested friends and family members. And we learned to do better. For several years, we set up our equipment under a portable shelter that took a few hours to put up each time.
These days we have a covered outdoor shelter with stainless steel sinks and tables and we use a commercial plucker and scalder. And we’ve cut our time down to about 3 hours for the same number of birds. Many would probably say we’ve reached expert status.
Still, it’s good to look back and see progress. That’s what keeps us enjoying our new chicks each spring!
