This week, we moved our eight-week-old Whiting True Green Layers out to Petyon’s Palace. This took many hands and some patience. First, we used a fishing net to catch the birds in the barn where they have been living for two months. Second, we clipped one of their wings (flight feathers only). Yes, just one. This makes it so the bird is unable to fly well. With only one side clipped, they can still get a couple of feet off the ground, just enough to get up on their perch to roost. They are not able to fly because their wings are not symmetrical.
After their wing is cut, we put them into a large dog crate. We must be quick opening the door, letting a bird in, then closing it. Otherwise, birds will come back out, and you must re-catch them. This did not happen to us this time, but it has in the past.
We must be very careful not to over fill or stuff the dog crate too full of birds because they will literally suffocate and crush each other. We learned this the hard way. Years ago, one of the first times we ever did this, we lost several birds in one transport because we figured it was only a five-minute ride to their new home and that they would be ok. Well, we were wrong.
We have learned it is better to give the birds plenty of room, so we split the 50 birds into two dog crates which were then loaded into the Gator to be driven to their new home. Once up in the poultry pasture, we let the birds into their new coop which will become their home (some will be moved later). They will not be let out of their coop and run for another two months because they are on poultry developer feed (a transition feed from starter feed to regular layer feed). Once they are old enough to be on regular layer food, they will then have free roam of the pasture.
This time is also good for them to get acquainted to the other chickens and ducks they will be sharing the land with. The other birds can come right of to the fence, but no fighting will happen. This is important because the older birds can become vary territorial.
They are now just getting used to their new home. When we first put them in the coop, they were not so sure about going outside. We had to go into their coop a couple times and push them out the door to go outside where their water and feed is.
Oh…I forgot, back to the overcrowding in the dog crates during transport. Even though we have learned the hard way of losing birds, it is unfortunate that we still lost two during this process. They piled up into the corner of the horse stall trying not to be caught, and two on the bottom died. Not ideal, but it can always be worse. They were put onto the top of the chicken coop for our maggot farm.
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