Spring Chick Progress Report

At three weeks this is the difference between a Cornish Cross chick and a Buff Orpington chick.  The Cornish X are bred for fast growth.  They are a broad breasted meat bird.  The Buff Orpington are heritage birds.  They are good egg layers, good moms (they go broody), and are not bad meat birds, (though I have no personal experience with a Buff Orpington on my table).

I took this photo to illustrate the difference in size since both these birds are three weeks old.

Which is why I had to separate them 10 days after their arrival.

54 chicks started out in this 100 gallon stock tank.

 















I lost 4 of them over the first three days, which left 50 birds.  Or so I thought.  (It turns out when I went to separate them out, that I had an extra bird-hooray!)

By the time they were 2 weeks old, the Cornish X were so much bigger than the Buff Orpington chicks that they seemed packed in like sardines

I had just been waiting until they feathered out a bit to move the Cornish X out to the lean-to on the south side of my house where I keep the brooders.  And after two weeks their wings had feathered out enough for me to feel comfortable about moving them out of the house.

That left a lot more space in the tank for the remaining 15 Buff Orpington chicks plus one unidentified bird (it looks like a Cornish X, but is small like the Buff Orps.  And since they hadn’t feathered out much at all, they are still indoors.

And here they are now at three weeks old.

The red heat lamps make it hard to see them in photographs, but you can see they have a lot more room to move about.

And this is the Cornish X in their brooder at two weeks old.

And here they are a three weeks old for comparison.

You can really see the growth in just one week, the box looks much fuller than in the first photo.  And since there are 35 birds in this 4’ x 4’ brooder, I imagine that they will be ready to move again in a week.

In good weather, the ideal scenario would be to move them outside at 4 weeks, but during this time of the year, with the colder temps, that will depend on them getting more fully feathered out.  They are nearly there, so I may get them outside in a week.

At 5 weeks, I expect to be able to move the Buff Orpington chicks into the brooder, but again-that depends on how far along their feathers are.  Still, I do have three heat lamps and it stays quite toasty in the brooder when I use all three.

After 5 weeks, I will be more than ready to have my dining room back.  Those little guys generate so much dust.  But I must admit, they also generate pure joy in the house.