Among our projects recently has been building yet another “standard”-sized (for us) chicken tractor for the chicks we have ordered. They should be arriving this week so we have been working to build and paint it, then outfit it to give them a safe place to grow until they have grown enough feathers to go outside. The chicks are egg-laying breeds. The majority of them will be amber links because they have been such great chickens for us, but I also wanted to try a few other breeds for comparison as well.
Standard commercial egg producer practices is to keep a chicken for only 2 years, with the reason being that those are the chicken’s prime laying years and supposedly she won’t lay as well after that. Some of our girls are going to be 2 years old this spring, some will be 1 year old this spring. We are going to let our ladies lay as long as they can but want to be sure we have a steady supply of eggs for our customers so we are going to go ahead and start growing the next generation of layers. It can take up to 6 months for a pullet to grow up enough to start laying eggs so it’s definitely something you have to plan for in advance!
Here are a few pictures of the chicken tractor in progress. It’s been built and painted, the feeders and waterers have been scrubbed and sanitized, and the heat lamps are on standby so now all we need is some shavings and we are ready for them! Sometime this week we should have some new chicks posts and pictures to share!
