12 days old

I moved the chicks from their cardboard box into larger quarters today. When I picked them up at the hatchery, I bought a roll of something called “Brooder guard” which is essentially a roll of corrugated cardboard that is designed to stand up on its own. So now that have a larger, corral-like structure in the garage, which both gives them more space and better accommodates their new feeder. They kept kicking the pine shavings into the round baby-chick feeders and packing them full, so I bought them a ‘reel’ feeder, which comes with a rotating top rail attachment that prevents them a) standing in the feeder (theoretically, some of them are still small enough to fit), and b) perching over the feeder. Both of these to try to keep the feeder chick poop-free.

Here is a picture of the new set-up:

And here is a picture of the chicks:

Here is the picture from when they were 4 days old for comparison:

Quite a difference! They haven’t grown much bigger, but they are growing feathers like mad. This is probably partly genetics (as an old-fashioned breed, they haven’t been bred to put on body weight as fast as possible) and partly the fact that even with the heat lamp, the brooder in the garage is a little bit cooler than it really should be.

They are growing feathers at vastly different rates though, still. Here’s a picture showing off the long wing feathers on one of the chicks: