Laying Chick Training
Check out our photo essay of transitioning our baby laying chicks to pasture from the brooder house. These chicks are about 6 weeks old and love their new home. Here is a photo essay about how we train baby layers to thrive on pasture. These babies are about 6 weeks old and are doing great!
-
- Since I’m always behind the camera, here’s me (Jerica). Bundled up and ready to load up the chicks!
-
- Here is the destination. These are the big chickens, the future flock-mates of our little birdies…
-
- …once they get trained to stay inside of this electric fence. They need a little time to learn not to hop through the holes. (sorry for the blurry picture)
-
- Here is the “training facility.” It is a portable pen the provides a physical barrier for the chicks with the option to train them to electric fence.
-
- Here is how you move 250 pounds worth of babies to the pasture.
-
- They get plenty of air in here while we load them all up.
-
- Peeping out the sides.
-
- Ready to go check out their new home.
-
- Here is Matt’s cheap and effective solution to keeping the panels upright on windy days, which are most days here at the ranch.
-
- Matt demonstrates how his panels easily unlatch and swivel.
-
- Entering the paddock.
-
- Look at all that green grass ready for little beaks to nibble!
-
- Yum, yum!
-
- The release! They are excited about the grass!
-
- Party at the Cadmans’!
-
- This is their house, enclosed on 3 sides to give them protection from the wind. There are roosts built in so they get used to roosting off the ground, like they will do once they are released into the big chicken flock.
-
- A few days later, Matt added the electric barrier so the chicks get used to avoiding it. In a few months, these little gals will be laying beautiful brown, white, and green eggs for our customers!
Our family was privileged to attend this year’s American Pastured Poultry Producer’s Association Conference in Dallas. It was three days of wonderful networking and sharpening of farming minds. If you’re a farmer type, we highly recommend attending. If you’re a beginner, it’s an ocean of information to drink in as fast as you can. If you’re a middle-experience farmer, it’s an opportunity to gain the knowledge you need
