Hot chicks

 Summer arrived suddenly and relentlessly with 90°F days and 70° nights. Day after day, I’m soaking my clothes through by 10 a.m. I made a goal of only working outside before lunch, but every day, I find just one more thing that has to be done outside. Once I do that one thing, there’s always one more thing….

The chicks are hot. They stand or lie around with their mouths open, panting with their throats. It’s called gular (“of the throat”) flutter.

Gular flutter--also note fluffed feathers to expose bare skin

We put up the chick fence on June 12 and let them outside for the first time I have mentioned before that they are jungle fowl in their evolutionary history and retain an aversion to direct sun. For that first day, I put one of the shade shelters over the wind break so they could stay out of the sun. We decided not to drag the dog kennel covered in landscape cloth into the run until we move the hens up in the fall. All of the bricks and boards we use to keep the cloth on the kennel are in the windbreak. The chicks think this is a very fine jungle gym.  They all huddled in the shade at first. Soon a few began to foray out into the grass.

The first outing as two chicks start to explore. I should have noticed the
size of the chick compared to the height of the door entry.

In addition to getting the chicks some fresh air, I was motivated to get them out of the coop so I could change the seriously stinky bedding. Meat chickens eat a lot. The consequences should be obvious to you. I shooed everyone out, shut the door from the inside, and changed all the wood chips. Afterward, one chick peered in curiously, but would not enter.

Can this be home if it doesn't smell like poop?

A little while later, there was a pile-up by the door. I didn’t think much about it until bedtime, when it became apparent that many of them couldn’t manage the big step into the coop. The problem was that previous chickens had used the dry soil next to the coop for dust bathing, effectively lowering the soil surface several inches. With darkness upon us, I grabbed the stragglers individually and put them inside.

Pile-up by the door

The next day, I installed a porch. I filled in the area by the coop with top soil and put two bricks in front of the door. This enabled even the smallest chick to come and go at will. Within moments, however, chicks were dust bathing in the newly installed soil.

The porch in front of the door

Eager dust bathers

Look how deep the Ameraucana (dark) chick has dug! Little stinker! I just filled that in. Also note the chick at the top. I see chicks like this and think they are about to die, but no, they are just rolling around in the dirt.

Ameraucana in a hole, seemingly wounded but actually fine chick at the top

Chicks also stretch a lot. I assume they are having growing pains or something. It is always the same. The leg and wing of the same size are stretched backward. If this isn’t a yoga pose, it should be. “The Chick” it could be called.

Chick yoga

In the morning when the chicks first come out of the coop, they feel compelled to establish the hierarchy all over again with chicken fights. It’s the males mostly (no surprise). You may have heard the expression “get your hackles up.” Hackles do exist. They are neck feathers. It is hard to catch a chicken fight in a pic because they happen so quickly, but I finally did it! Behold chicks with their hackles up (and two bystanders “egging” them on).

Hackles up, from the front and the back

The pullets are good at flying up to and perching on the crossbar on the windbreak. Here two Ameraucana are enjoying to cool evening air.

Pullets admiring the sunset

The meat chicks struggle to get up on the crossbar and find it a bit two narrow for their massive feet. Chickens don’t have the kind of feet that readily grasp small branches like songbirds do. They prefer flat surfaces.

Whoa-oa! How do you balance on this thing?

Most of the chicks lounge in the grass under the shade shelters in the evening.

The evening lounge in the cool grass

The coop has a high 2 x 4 perch for the hens in the winter. Experience suggests that there is no way a meat chicken can get up there, even with a ladder. I made a perch on the floor from a 2 x 4 and two bricks. They are slowly getting the hang of it, but somehow have not grasped the concept of spreading out all along its length.

Perch practice--everyone huddled on about 1/3 of the perch length

The chicks are getting old enough that I can tell the males from the females by the size of their combs. I get “straight run” meat chickens, which means they aren’t sexed. In theory, we should get half males and half females. However, roosters are preferred for meat because they get bigger faster. Last year, I ended up with mostly females and suspected that they had been sexed after all, and some of my roosters had been swiped to bring a higher price. In any case, with straight-run, we end up with some big chickens (the roosters) and some smaller chickens (the hens), as we sure are not going to set up the butchering stuff twice. Next year, I may request all females. I would save a little money and end up with chickens that are all the same size. We just might have to delay butchering for a week.  This year, we seem to have gotten half roosters (although it is hard to count chickens because they don’t stand still), and I have to stop thinking mean things about our supplier.

The rooster (front) has a bigger comb than the hen behind him

This picture of a male was taken four days later, showing fuller feathers and larger comb

The size difference of a layer and a meat chick never fails to impress me. This picture is from a few days ago. The difference is more remarkable with each passing day.

Little chick, big chick

That’s all for today, boys and girls! Stay cool.