Cornish Cross - week 4

We are halfway there already with the cornish cross meat chickens. It's gone so quickly and easily. We haven't lost a single chicken so far. In honor of the beautiful spring weather, it was decided that they should be given the privilege of spending it outdoors in the chicken tractor. The large black bird seemed to enjoy being in the tractor too.

T1 brings out half the chickens in a box, to the tractor.

"In you go."

My son tells me that the meat bird varieties don't scratch and search for bugs as much as the layers do. They just eat, eat, eat. But my daughter and I did bring them some beetles on a stick and one chicken goobled them up.

When we are sure it won't freeze at night we will leave them permanently in the chicken tractor. Then we will just move their pen daily to a new spot, to give them a new 'salad bar' as Joel Salatin says. But since we aren't sure they would make it all night, they were taken back into the brooder for the evening.

They seemed so happy outside. The way life for a chicken should be.

Well, almost.