Raising Meat Birds In The Fall- Shelter

     As I wrote in Part 1 of this series, we started raising our broilers in the fall. We have found it less labor intensive because the weather is so much more comfortable for us and the broilers. No more birds keeling over from heat stroke and we are not scalding and plucking, fighting our own sweat and bugs!

Pasture Poultry

       Today, I thought we could talk about housing and heat. We like our birds out in the grass and when summer ends, in the garden as a clean up crew. Chickens love a bit of green in their diet and bugs are a huge delight. I can hardly wait to show you the difference in the final product! What is good for the birds actually has a dramatic affect on the meat. The difference is easily seen in the fat of the birds and the liver. (We will do a comparison at the end of the season.) My children can really taste the difference between store chicken and home grown. They say our chicken is by far more flavorful.
           Our chicks' home base is a calf hutch! (If you can ever get one of these at an auction or something, DO IT! They are so useful!) Any kind of light weight, moveable structure should work so long as it is vermin proof.

We use the blankets at night to reduce the size of the opening, in front, so it does not get too cold for the chicks.

 A calf hutch has the added advantage of keeping rain from blowing in. It also keeps the birds out of a hot sun. We use the small opening in the back to hang the lights from, while the chicks are young.

         We move the chicks once a day when they are little and then twice a day as needed. This keeps them in fresh grass and bugs. I wish our hutches were on wheels! Chicks getting caught under the hutch as it moves can be a real problem. I have developed a technique where I pick up the hutch slightly and wiggle it, pushing any chicks out of the way before I set it down. When the lights are removed, one can also put the hutch on one's, like a turtle, watching chickens as you go.
      Prop a box fan out front if temperatures get too hot! You can tell because the chicks will be lethargic or panting or lineup at the front, trying to catch a cool breeze! Use the table below, from Nutrena, as a quick temperature guide. In sunny weather, calf hutches will be WARMER than outside temperatures!!! (This is great in November but can be dangerous in hot weather!) So think accordingly! Tiny babies are the most susceptible to the large temperature shifts of cool nights and hot/warm days. Many people will keep their chicks in a building where those shifts are not as dramatic until the chicks are 2-4 weeks old. That works too! We just happen to be home most of the time and this is easier for us.

    Double Benefits

 As the chicks get older and the weather cools down, we remove the blankets and use the lights less and less. As soon as the weather is comfortable for the chicks, we add a play yard for them in the front.
    After the first frost, the real benefits kick in! We drop those chickens right into the garden to clean up old produce, work on bugs, and mix in the mulch for the winter. The icing on the cake is that the money we use to produce our chickens, is also going to fertilize the garden through their manure! By spring, the garden will have plenty of nitrogen to jumpstart the next garden season with!
      Next up, we look at feeder and waterer options. We have used store bought in the past, but they don't hold up for very many years and they are expensive. Until next time!