We are starting off easy with some chickens. How hard can it be? right??
So we bought six chicks from Wilco Farm Store in Springfield. Three Speckled Sussex Pullets and three Cornish Cross. The staff at Wilco were mostly helpful and answered some of our ore mundane starter questions without too much “omg – these people are so city..” eye rolling. We got them home and set-up and comfortable. Morgan decided to name one of the more distinct Sussex chicks Terrance – that boy isn’t normal 🙂
We probably made some newbie mistakes, like buying the $35 crap brooding “kit” the only thing really useful in it was the PVC pipe heat lamp stand that we could have built for $3.00.
Two of the Cornish Cross chicks died within a few days of unknown causes. One looked a bit weak from the moment we put her in the enclosure, the other one appeared to have been attacked by her mates.
Bridge went back to Wilco and picked up four more – I think they are Maran Pullets and seem a bit more sturdy. At this point we think they are all between 4 and 5 weeks old.
She elected to make the enclosure a bit bigger using an old dog kennel fencing and adding a couple of roosts for them to get up out of the bedding.
We will work on cleaning up the existing coop in the next couple of weeks to get it ready for them to move from the shop to a more permanent location.
