21 thoughts on “Raising Chickens: Moving Your Pullets / Chicks to Your Coop”

  1. Yes we do. It’s not the best idea but we want to maximize production when the farm markets open in June so that means a brood in September that we move in December. We don’t heat our coops. We have enough birds (about 60 per coop) so body heat does the trick. We have found it very important to get the pullets accustomed to dark and cold before the move so two weeks before we begin reducing the heat and light in the brooder until they are used to just daylight and no heat.

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  2. No, she doesn’t. One chicken follows her around which she tolerates. When we get new chicks we keep her out of the barn for a few weeks but after that we let her back in. She appears to have no interest in them.

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  3. Check out tractor supply company, they’ve got water warmers that will keep that barrel unfrozen in the winter time.

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  4. The only thing we have found effective is that standard double wall font with a heated base underneath. Outside each coop we keep one or two 30 gal tanks with deicers in them. We have an all weather spout 100 ft from the keeps and we refill the tanks as needed and blow out the house after. It means filling the fonts with buckets every day or so but it’s the only solution we found that can stand occasional sub-zero weather.

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  5. What do you do in terms of watering your birds over the freezing weather? I’ve got a 55 gallon drum with an auto watering cup attached, but went out this morning and it was frozen.. Looks like time to drain it is near. I’ve got a pan style heater for a large metal waterer, but always wondered what others do.

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  6. One is 16 x 8 the other is 12 x 8. The latter one is higher so we have more roost space so both coops can hold the same — 60 is the ideal but with so many predator problems we go up to 80 sometimes.

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  7. Thanks for noticing! It’s a running joke that I always wear a geeky shirt for the chicken videos and I love it when people notice. For the next one I promised @danbenjamin I would wear his 5by5 network shirt. Previous was Daring Fireball. (I’m a app developer by day).

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  8. That’s a hard question. I can see where it might cause a problem but it might also solve a problem since it will eliminate competition for the highest roost. We have birds jostling nightly for that in coop #2. It gets so loud sometimes the leghorn pullets hang out in the run until they are done. Let me know how it goes and whether they decide one roost or “better” than the other and why they might have decided that.

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  9. I have 2 roosts, opposite each other and at the same height. does having roosts at different heights affect the “pecking order” and promote chicken animosity? I have a 4×4 hen house with 10 birds, and 9 inches of roost space for each bird.

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  10. I have 11 Rhode Island reds in a 13 X 8 Dog kennel with poultry wire on the outside. do you think that my enclosure is big enough?

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  11. I remember you saying in a different video to wait till 8 weeks and introduce them at night. Thanks to your advice we haven’t lost any birds. We have 11 Red Star that are grown and laying, and 6 Gold Sex Link that we raised from tiny babies. When we introduced them at 8 weeks there was some pecking, but never any blood and they are all getting along well now and roosting together. This was our first time raising chickens for eggs, and we really appreciate your videos and advice! From East Texas

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  12. We introduced a group of Rhode Island Red Pullets into our coop with our Jersey Giant adults.
    We have what can be called a two tiered, 3′ by 7′ nesting table with about 18 inches underneath it and that’s what the pullets have taken as their shelter.
    They have food and water under there and they go out during the day. They love it and the adult birds are leaving them alone.
    In fact, the only thing that we’ve seen is that one of the pullets thinks she’s hot stuff and has challenged the adults.

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