From Chicks...To Chickens

I swear, right before I left for work one morning, I let the chicks out onto their run...and when I returned home in the evening, they were full blown chickens. I don't know what happend? They seemed to grow up overnight. We haven't given our chicks names per say...but Nicholas lovingly calls this chicken "Fatty Brave-y" because its the fattest bravest chicken we have. It also has the brightest comb of all the others. My guess, is that Fatty Brave-y most likely is a rooster.

This chicken gives off a cool warning cackle whenever there is a low flying Blue Jay around. and sometimes...(and I mean only sometimes), this bird seems to patrol the other four...corrals them...or does what Nicholas and I call a "body slam". A Fatty Brave-y Body Slam is performed from a high point in the chicken run, usually from the front door or the ramp itself, then a big jump and flap of the wings, only to come down 9 out of 10 times right on top of another chicken. Im trying to catch it on video, but its hard to know when a body slam is about to happen. Ive seen other ones in our flock do the same thing, but Fatty Brave-y is the best at hitting the target, and avoiding collision with the chicken wire or other obstacles.

The flock is healthy and happy and live full time in their new coop. At 6 weeks old, we are moving them off the 30% chick starter (30% protein)...to a 20% Flock Raiser...or Developer. Developer has less protein, and higher carbs, to kinda fatten them up. Also we have started on some scratch grains. Small amounts of Rolled Oats and Cracked Corn is sprinkled into their run every morning by our Chicken Wrangler, and we crush bread and oats together and mix it with various other scraps. By far their favorite scrap food is apple cores. We dice an apple core up into small edible pieces, mix in our oats/bread mixture, toss in any other lettuce or carrot pieces and it turns into an irresistible treat. I gave them too much the first time I made this, thinking they would regulate themselves, but they were at the trough for hours. Its important not to do that as they may get malnourished by filling up on greens and not getting enough protein, but the chicks have been free ranging and have been eating lots of slugs and worms. I'm sure it will all balance out in the end.