new home for our chicks

The tiny chicks who arrived just five weeks ago are no longer so tiny. 

Ah, meat chickens. What a strange animal. They really do double in size every week, which is a little bit freaky.

I heard this week of a friend of a friend who had a large flock of meat chickens and on processing day one accidentally got left behind. They kept it, and kept feeding it, and it just kept growing. It got as big as a turkey until it started freaking out the farmers and they processed it. (Harvested it. Killed it. Abject apologies to all vegetarian friends.)

I took a couple of photos today of the new pen Adam and Dad built for our chickens, but neglected to take a clear close up of the birds themselves. Will take some over the weekend.

I did, however, manage to get a photo of Adam's thigh.

Someone should really sew up those jeans.

This moving of the meat chickens is exciting for us: it's the first thing we're doing on Mum and Dad's farm. (Although I had very little, er, nothing, to do with the rebuilding of the chook yard and Dad had an lot to do with it. I tended to supply afternoon tea and moral support. The building of stuff is Adam's gig. The generating of ideas of other stuff to build is my contribution.) 

These birds are odd though – some ventured out to have a look at the greenery, mostly they stayed all snuggled up on the fresh bedding. They sit down a lot. They don't roost. They have enormous feet.

So far, so good though. 

Happy, well fed, uncrowded, chemical-free birds. We're feeding them garlic to prevent mites, worms and parasites. 

I love my chickens. Am hoping to love them even more in approximately seven weeks time (on the table.)

xxx