Hurrah! We have cleared the house of chicks!
First, there were the layer chicks in a home-made brooder (cardboard box) in the mud room. Once they were a few weeks old we put them out into a new hen house with run attached, in time to take delivery of the meat bird chicks into the same but different cardboard box brooder.
They have grown exponentially and needed to go out, so we have had to be inventive and build another hen house quickly. That's where building with straw bales has the edge. It looks horrible and dark in there, but it was quick and cheap to build.
At the same time, we took the run away from the layer chicks and after clipping their wings and surrounding them with an electric net, we let them free range. Not before we tested the fence. And how did we do that? We got Jane to take off her shoes and stick a finger on it...
Apparently, her brother and sister used to do this for fun when she was little, and as a form of entertainment, I can heartily recommend it. Laugh? I nearly did.
So the meat birds are in the run for a few days, and the layers are running around happily and peace descends, albeit briefly, on Kilbrannan Farm.
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