Red Ranger Update

Not-so-red Red Ranger

Big doings in the world of chickens here.

Feeding Station

After about 3 weeks in the chicken tractor, we fenced a portion of our yard and put the flock "out to pasture."  This has had the benefit of giving them more room (it was getting a little cozy in the tractor), allowing more foraging and cutting down on the poo concentrating in one area of the yard.  With 63 chickens, it's doesn't take many hours before the accumulation of au naturale fertilizer is pretty, uh, strong.  By spreading the wealth around, so to speak, we're contributing to overall land and bird health.  The chickens have been enthusiastically in favor of the move and after some initial loitering around the feeding stations, they've now spread out and are making full use of their space.  I think to begin with they were scared of straying too far from the feed in case they couldn't find their way back.

As you may have noticed, our Red Rangers are not looking so red, which has me questioning the purity (or accuracy) of what we received.  In a quick google of "red rangers" the images we find show beautiful red birds with darker tail feathers.  Now we definitely have a few that look like that, but overall, we have many, many more that look like the sample at the top of the page.  In fact, a few are mostly white with a few dark speckles, more like a Cornish Cross.  Even so, the birds we have demonstrate decent growth and excellent health.  It will be interesting to see what average weight and feed conversion looks like at the end.

Since the chicken tractor is a a very heavy yet movable structure with the only entrance being a trap door through the top, the husband had to construct a new place for the flock to roost at night.  We were going for light and movable as well as offering good protection from possible predators (though, knock on wood, that's never been an issue).  We went with a simple A-frame design, covered with field fencing and then when it rains, covered with plastic sheeting.  He included 2 long roosting poles inside.  It took them a couple of nights to get used to the new set-up which necessitated us going out just after dark to hand-move 63 chickens into their new sleep abode (highly recommend this as a repetitive squat workout - feel the burn!).  Most (notice I didn't saw "all") have since gotten the hang of putting themselves to bed, though a few still stubbornly try to tuck themselves in along the outside.

Happy Spring!