Broiler Bird Update

Last week we received our order of 50 Jumbo Cornish X's from McMurray Hatchery. It was pretty cool to go stand in line at the post office and walk by all the people with my box of chirping chicks.

 I picked them up first thing in the morning and took them too my office for the day.

(This is what they looked like the day I got them.)

 We decided to get the chicks with no immunizations and are feeding non-medicated feed. So far we have lost 4 birds each at night. I'm not sure of the cause but with 50 birds and still pretty cold temps I don't think it's too bad. McMurray also included 2 extra birds so that helped with the losses. They have been growing really fast and I have already had to split them up because ran out of space in the first brooder I set up.

(This is what they look like after 1 week)

They are emptying the feed tray multiple times a day. Hopefully we will have some warmer weather coming and they will get all their feathers soon so they can go outside in the Barn Tractor to eat bugs and grass instead of so much store bought food.

I am also in the middle of building a Whizbang Chicken Plucker mad famous by Herrick Kimball. So far so good and I will post about that once I am done.