Moving the Meat Babies

The baby meat birds are nearly seven weeks old now.  Despite their massive size, they are very much baby birds.  They make little peeping bird sounds, and spend most of their time preening their feathers and snuggling.  Occasionally, I will see two of them in a rooster stand-off, but they don't stick with it very long.  They have a wide legged lumbering gait, and love to eat and drink, but don't seem as excited to scratch around in the straw as much as little MJ, the heritage breed chick that lives with them.  

They have been living in the greenhouse, inside the brooder box, which by the time they were five weeks old was too small for twenty-three birds.  One night a few weeks ago, it was well below freezing, so I closed the side of the greenhouse, which I have always left open before.  I left for work early, and forgot to open the greenhouse plastic on one side.  It turned out to be a beautiful sunny day.  

The meat babies got too hot.  They ran out of water.  The only thing that saved them, I'm sure, is that it was such a nice day, that I left work early thinking I would spend the extra daylight hours figuring out how to build them a ramp, so they could get out of the brooder box if they wanted.  

It was terrible, to find them all pale, gasping, and woozy from the heat.  Six of them were already dead when I found them.  I hurried to open the greenhouse and refill the water.  Some of them couldn't walk, so I had to bring them to the water and lift their wings to the breeze so they would cool down.  After about an hour, they regained their pink cheeks and seemed normal.  While I tended my poor overheated birds, and stacked up the bodies of the birds that perished, I had plenty of time to think about my mistake, and my regret.  At first it seemed like such a disaster of my own making, but I know in the grand scheme of things, the loss of six birds destined for the frying pan isn't quite the stuff of tragedy.  It sure felt like it though.  Poor meat babies.   

From then on I left the greenhouse side open, always.  Last weekend, I moved each bird to the big chicken coop.  Because they don't try to fly, I could just set each bird in the bottom of a bucket and carry a bucket in each hand to the coop.  Some of them were curious enough to stick their heads out of the bucket and look around, but most just settled in to the bottom of the bucket.  These are very accommodating birds.  Brandon saw me carrying buckets back and forth and asked me what I was doing.  You know, just hauling buckets of chicken.  

The meat babies are settled in the chicken coop now.  They don't seem interested in coming out to explore, but I'm glad they have more room to move around.  I'm learning some things about raising meat birds with my set up, for sure.  Even though these birds grow fast, and don't try to fly out of their space, I'm still not sure I don't prefer to raise the heritage birds that have a little more independence.  Taking care of meat babies is like taking care of babies.