Now that we have had a season of hatching out and growing up several batches of chicks, we know some changes have to be made before next year. Growing out one batch of chicks is not bad, but growing out multiple hatches of chicks is something else. One of the major changes will be to get the chicks out of my house as soon as possible. As cute as they are, they are dust machines. I am constantly wiping down shelves and tables and even the floors get a fine covering of dust in just a few days. I have a pretty good work load and plenty to do on the weekends with the garden and chickens, so I don't want to be constantly cleaning up dust. So we have a plan of attack for this winter to get ready for next season and getting the chicks out of the house.
I have decided, after the chicks get a few days old, I want them out of the house. I also decided I want them to be on wire for the first month of life. On wire floors the chicks are not exposure to Coccidiosis. With no exposure to soil and feeding them medicated feed, we should have not have to deal with the coccidioses in the little chicks.
My plan for this first month of life is a raised coop 6' x 4'. I will be able to use the area under the coop as a compost pile as food scraps and paper shreds will be mixed with droppings. I plan on having the coop high enough so I can turn the compost pile at times and I hope to have the chicks producing good soil for the garden.
I will have one end be a wood floor and there I will have a reptile heat mat covered in play sand. This will give the chicks a warm area to go to. My reptile heat mats are 12" wide and I plan on having a low lip to keep the sand in pace over the heat tape. The sand will be easy enough to sift dropping out of to keep it clean. Also on the wood floor will be an automatic feeder I make out of PVC. I hope there will not be too much waste with this type of feeder. I thought of having the feeder over the wire, but did not want the spilled feed to attract the mice and rats we have around. Though I have a good population of feral cats, no need to ask for trouble. We will have chicken nipples hooked to an outside reservoir to provide a constant supply of fresh water.
In the house the chicks have been going into a large dog crate until they are about 5 weeks old then going into an outside area to grow out for a few months before being mixed into the adult flock. So, to have more than the one grow out area, I will be building two more pens to handle growing chicks out to five or six weeks of age. I have a very large Mesquite tree off the back door and it is under this I will be building these pens. The chicks should stay in nice dappled shade all day and be close enough for feeding and watering to the existing pens we have constructed. I hope to lay out the pens the weekend and get an idea exactly where they are to go. I am still finishing some runs on the other pens, but as soon as they are done we will be starting on these. At my age and budget, we can only do a little bit on the weekends at a time. It will take me all winter to get these done and I have house chores like getting the deck stain finished to work into my weekends as well.
My plan is to have the two pens next to each other with the coop/roost area in the center. That way I can access both the coops from one place. I think I will also be making most of the runs three feet high instead of the two feet I have on the other runs. This will allow me to have some branches set up in the runs for roosting outside and also give me room for automatic PVC feeders. They are about 2.5 feet high and this should give enough area to top them off. I will also have an access door in the side rather than having a section of run where I can remove the top. I want the ability to add wood chips at times and if the access to the runs is three feet high and on the side I will be able to dump a wheelbarrow load inside the door. The chickens will take care of getting it spread out.
With the top of a run being removed, I have to use a pitchfork to add the wood chips into the runs from the wheelbarrow. The main thing with having a removable top on the runs was getting access so I could rake and clean up if needed. Should I need to get in the runs with a rake, I still can with the side access in a three foot high run. I just will not be able to stand up and work in the run. Since I have not found a need to date to get that kind of access to the runs, we are going to try this new design.
At this end of the house where I am constructing the pens, I have an electrical outlet so it will be pretty easy to get power to the brooder for the heat mats. I am still working out how I will keep it protected from water where the mat plugs into the extension cord. I am not sure if we will just build a waterproof box to hold this section or wrap in plastic and tape the heck out of it. With my long commutes we will be thinking this over a bit more and have a plan when we get building.
I had hoped with getting the pens and runs finished I was done with my chicken projects. But it looks like I have one more round of construction projects yet to do. I am hoping when these are done I will be able to hatch out chicks and have a safe and secure place to grow them out until they can be evaluated for breeding purposes. At that time some will be kept, some will be sold and the others will be processed. I have come to the conclusion I am going to have to reserve a weekend every month to process birds, and it looks like I need to start pricing freezers to hold them. At this point, I am willing to trade a weekend of processing for the every few days of dusting I now have to do.
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