We got Chickens! An Update

Barred Rock Chicken

How I'm Caring for them

I got 8 layer chicks on May 8th, meaning my chicks are 7 week old 'teenagers' now. I purchased 4 'Barred Rock' chicks, which are black and white patterned like in the image above, and 4 'Black Star' or also called 'Black Sex Link' chicks, which are almost fully black with some reddish brown feathers around the head and chest. I originally wanted to get just a few barred rocks but since chicks have been selling out so fast this year I'd been waiting for the spring chick-panic to die down, when I saw them in store, I panicked! I'm sure other chicken owners can understand this!

As a kid we had raised chickens so thankfully I knew just what to do and what to purchase. I kept them in a big bin at home on newspapers with a chick heater plate, small waterer and feeder. I changed the newspaper out twice weekly. I checked them regularly and thankfully only had to wipe a dirty booty a couple times!

At the 4-5 week mark when they were just about fully feathered, and since it was already so hot outside here in central California, they went outside in a dog kennel with a slightly bigger waterer, chick grit and a second feeder.

Now the chickens are getting too big for the coop we knew the run and coop project would need to come soon and since they are ridiculously expensive at the store, we knew we had to make our own. To Home Depot we went!

Just this past weekend my husband and I built the simple 8x8ft run, which we'll eventually make a coop for! In the meantime they're much happier having room to play and peck in the grass. My favorite upgrade at the moment is their new metal 5 gallon feeder and waterer! (I was already having to refill their tiny food/water dispensers daily! No time for that!)

Our chicken run (coop, roof and door latch to be added later, priorities!)

As the chickens reach adult size I'll be watching closely to see how many days it takes them to eat 5 gallons of feed because my goal will be to have feeders big enough to that I only need to refill them roughly once weekly. This will be more efficient of course but also allow me to know they'll be fine if I'm away from home for a couple days.

Eventually I'll also be adding sand to the coop floor since this will make droppings dry up and be easy to clean with a scoop and the chickens will be able to dig safely and take dust baths in it. I've also seen lots of promising content about a product called 'First Saturday Lime' which supposedly helps with smells and pests in the coop, but I havent purchased it yet.

What I'm Feeding Them

Lets talk diet!

Their first bag of dry grain feed was just a local chick 'start' crumble feed from Farmers Best brand, I got at the local hardware store. Now that the chickens are a little bigger I have them on the feed I always envisioned for my future flock, Kalmbach Reserve!

Kalmbach Chickhouse Reserve

The Reserve line of feeds from Kalmbach are a beautiful whole grain feed with very little dust, which makes for less waste! You can see the sunflower seeds, peas, lentils and corn! Right now the chickens are still eating from the first bag of Chickhouse Reserve and after they hit the 16 week of age mark I'll start buying them Henhouse Reserve which is a 17% layer feed. For reference, regular layer feed from most brands is 16-17%.

Part of the fun of chickens is also treating them to produce scraps, as chicks they didn't care for the occasional strawberry or lettuce leaf but as soon as they got outside they became much more adventurous and began pecking at my fruit/veg offerings. Now if I have produce waste it goes straight to them, sometimes with an extra pick form the garden, like a branch of borage herb or head of lettuce.

Why I think I might have 2 Roosters in the Mix!

Its common knowledge in the world of chicken-keeping that lay hen chicks don't always turn out to be hens! And I think this may be the case with 2 of my barred rocks!

2 of them have bigger combs and wattles (the skin flaps above and below the head) and also their feather coloring is coming in slightly more white in pattern compared to the other 2 who are slightly shorter. I googled 'hen vs rooster Barred Rock' and lo and behold the images are very convincing... Barred Rock hens are darker in coloration to their male counterparts! Stay Tuned! A rooster stew may be on the menu!