The Growing Flock RSS

The Growing Flock — Part 3 of 8 Your birds are around ten weeks old now. They're feathered, noisy, and every time you walk past they press against the mesh like they're waiting for something to happen. That's usually when the question arrives: when do I let them out? There's no single right answer, and that's good news. Free-ranging, a decent run, or something in between can all give you healthy, happy birds. What matters is choosing honestly based on your yard, your predators and how much you can supervise. Readiness Isn't a Number of Weeks Plenty of guides give...

The Growing Flock — Part 2 of 8 At around nine weeks old, your birds stop looking like oversized chicks and start looking like small chickens. Frames lengthen, feathers tighten up, and personalities arrive. This is also the point where most keepers start squinting at the flock over a cup of tea, trying to work out who is a pullet (a young female under about a year) and who is a cockerel (a young male under about a year). Some signs at this age are genuinely useful. Others are folklore passed around chook groups for decades. Let's sort out which...

The Growing Flock — Part 1 of 8 Your young birds are settled in the coop and sorted out with the older flock. Then, somewhere around eight weeks, you notice the coop looks smaller than it did a fortnight ago. That's not your imagination. Between eight weeks and point of lay a pullet roughly triples in body weight, and the coop that suited them on move-in day is one they're actively outgrowing. The good news is that almost everything needing adjustment is straightforward, and better done now, while the birds are young and adaptable, than later when habits are set....