The chickens have officially graduated and are now roaming around the yard as they see fit. We've had these babies since they were in eggs. We actually have two different age groups, about a month apart. The first group were eggs given to us from a friend. He had a bunch of egg-laying brown and red chickens and asked us to incubate some for him. In helping do so, he would give us some of the chicks. For months, I protested a firm no to Drew about getting chickens. It just hasn't been the time right now. But if you know Drew, then you know he LOVES his chickens. Eventually I caved and we kept a few from that hatched batch. They were fuzzy little yellow and brown chicks, chirping and scared of the world. After they hatched, they grew up in the brooder, getting the best chick feed, water, fresh air, shelter, a fan, and a heater. As they were about a month old, Drew hatched a few more chicks from another batch of eggs, these ones were mostly White Leghorns with one random brown chick. When the second batch hatched. Drew and I moved the first batch into a chicken tractor we made.
The chicken tractor is basically a mobile chicken coop. It is usually wood and metal fencing and light enough to move around to a different spot every few days. This allows the chickens to be able to be outside but safe from predators, and be able to eat bugs from the ground. The first night they were in there, we lost a few to a predator that dug on the side and underneath it. After mourning the loss of a few chicks, we quickly fenced in the bottom as well, enough for them to still get to the ground and eat bugs and grass, but small enough that predators couldn't get to them from underneath.
After the second batch did their early weeks in the brooder, we introduced them to the other chicks in the chicken tractor. I was a scared momma hen, worried that the older ones would bully and kill the younger ones. I barely slept that night, worried I would wake to a pile of feathers. But alas, they got along just fine. Over the next few weeks, we lost a chick here and there to a snake that would get in the coop. I like to feed them scraps of food a few times a week. They love okra, watermelon, leafy greens, and zucchini.
Currently, we have 6 brown and 6 white chickens. Most recently, we have been letting them out of the chicken coop at sunrise. Drew opens up the coop door where they are all impatiently waiting to be let out. They jump out and run around the dewy morning grass, eating up all the bugs they can find. In the daytime, they play, fight, and relax in the tall weeds and grasses here and there. This morning, I saw them on the other side of the yard jumping around in the hedges and searching for bugs under leaves. I have one that I favor, mostly because he favors me. I know I know, I was the one that protested chickens in the first place. But there is this one that captured my heart. It is a rooster from the first batch. When he was a chick, he had this thin mustache and confidence beyond the others. Today he is a reddish brown rooster with dark, shimmery blue-green feathers by his tail, and a faint memory of his thin mustache still there. I named him Salvador, as in Salvador Dali. I know, I named a chicken, I can't help myself.
