Author: Anna & Mark

Three separate flocks

August 28, 2011 Posts No Comments

Old chickens in ragweedWe now have three very
distinct flocks, each in their own space.  Last week, we turned
our mean rooster into sausage and stew, leaving four old hens remaining
of our pre-2011 birds (three Golden Comets
and one White Cochin.)  As top hens in the
pecking order, they get all of the kitchen scraps along with their
laying pellets, and since I rotated them back into chicken
pasture 3, they’ve
also been enjoying scratching through the aging compost pile for
worms.  But I have to admit that the old girls also spend a lot of
their time napping in the shade — I think I’ve been feeding them too
much.


Pullets on pasture

Our “tweens” are the
cockerels and pullets that hatched out at the end of March — one
homegrown youngster (Golden Comet X Golden Comet/Rhode Island Red
hybrid) and Pullets in the weedstwelve storebought Black
Australorps. 
Although they’ve taken to roosting near the old girls in the main part
of the coop, the tweens are clearly at the bottom of the pecking order
and aren’t allowed to eat near the older flock.  As a result, the
youngsters tend to stick to their own pasture (which is the over-grazed
forest
pasture since the
old girls have decided they like the grassier pasture I newly opened),
but they also slip under the gate and graze out in the woods across the
driveway.  These tweens are constantly working for their dinner
and rarely seem interested when I put out storebought feed, which may
be why they’re a bit timid around people — what’s the point of
cozying up to humans when there’s so much food free for the picking?



Cuckoo maran chicksMeanwhile, our May chicks have
just made the transition from the brooder to the other chicken coop,
spurred on by their newfound ability to make short flights.  (I
figured they’d be out of the brooder and wandering around the kitchen
soon if I didn’t move them.  I kept them inside longer than the
last batch to protect them from rats.)  These chicks are just shy
of two weeks old, and I figure within a week they’ll be ready to
explore the vastly overgrown chicken
pasture 2, which has
been fallow since the middle of March.  I’m looking forward to
seeing how these Cuckoo Marans (and homegrown 3.0) compare to the Black
Australorps in foraging ability.


One chicken waterer in each pasture keeps all of
our birds well hydrated.

Flocks of multiple ages don t play well together

August 28, 2011 Posts No Comments
Black and brown chickens

Chick going through fenceWe let our first set of
chicks grow up in the same coop as our laying hens because I figured
they’d pick up some foraging tricks from these matriarchs.  I quickly learned my
lesson. 



For the first month or
so, the chicks barely interacted with the adults.  They were fed
in their gated off corner of the coop and were able to slip through
holes in the pasture fence to forage wherever they wished — which
generally meant far away from those big, scary hens.  But when the
time came to kick the first brood out of their protected corner so that
our broody hen could raise brood three, trouble started.



Black australorps on pastureThe old girls were and are
territorial of any food introduced into the pasture, so if I try to
feed both flocks together, the hens chase the tweens away even after
they’ve gorged and can’t eat another bite.  I ended up having to
feed the tweens in the supposedly resting pasture 4 because the smaller
chickens can slide under the gate and get to this protected paddock
while the old girls are left to cool their heels in pasture 3.



The main problem with
this arrangement is that both pasture 3 and pasture 4 are now
overgrazed, but I can’t rotate or I’ll have to find a new way to get
the youngsters a bite to eat.  I’m a purist and am offended by
even the slightest foul fowl smell — I figure you’re doing something
wrong if you can see or smell chicken poop in your coop or pasture, and
I can now do both.



Eggs in weedsThe other problem is that the
overcrowded coop no longer seems to be a conducive spot for
laying.  I thought our old girls had just reached “menopause”
until I found this stash of two dozen eggs hidden in the weeds.  I
guess there’s just too much activity in the coop to lay eggs.



I’ve solved the problem
for broods 2 and 3 by the simple method of giving each young flock its
own space — half or all of a coop and a whole pasture apiece. 
Two pastures per flock would be better so that I could rotate back and
forth, but that might be pushing  our ability to get pastures
built.  Luckily, we can divide each coop in half and have the
equivalent of four coops at our command — just the right amount of
sections for a permanent flock and any number of broods since the
broilers go in our bellies after three months and their space can be
reused.

 

Our chicken waterer makes watering the flock as
easy as filling a bucket once a month.

Chicken pasture shape

August 28, 2011 Posts No Comments
Trampled pasture

Chick on pasture

Shape is an important
factor to take into account when planning a permanent pasture for
chickens.  We’ve had a mother hen and her brood in the L-shaped
chicken pasture 4 for about six weeks now, and they’ve worked hard at
trampling down and eating the weeds right in front of the coop. 
(See above.)







However, their
depredations end abruptly as you turn the corner of the pasture. 
Here’s what it looks like just ten feet from where I took the top photo:


Grown up pasture

Turken chickPart of that difference in
grazing is simply due to the fact that, until they were a month old,
the chicks were so tiny that the pasture was way too big for
them.  Every night, their crops would be full to busting just from
hunting on the door step, so why wander out of sight of Mom in the deep
grass?



But even when I added
the rest of our adult flock to the pasture in mid July, the hens were
eschewing the far corner.  Luckily, the problem was easy to fix
— start throwing weeds and kitchen scraps  in a compost pile at
the pasture’s far end and add a chicken waterer, and suddenly even the
chicks want to check it out.



The moral of the story
is — either make your pastures linear or add a point of interest at
the hidden end if you want them grazed evenly.  (Or both.)