Backyard broiler update -- Week 4

These things are consuming a lot of my free time.

I've had such good luck with the poultry nipple waterers, that I decided to make another one.  They are cleaner and so much less work than the 1-quart waterer I've been using in the second tractor.

The quart waterer is still in there.  I need to take that out.

Huh, that looks familiar.  Oh right, I more or less modeled it off of Joel Salatin's chicken shelters.

The birds themselves seem to be doing fine.  They've grown quite a bit since we got them.

Day 1

Almost 4 weeks.

Here they are doing what they do best.  Eating!

I'm real tempted to get a few more feeders.  If I did that I might get away with only checking on them once a day.  As it is now, I check on them before work, and at least twice in the evening after work.

I had a bit of a scare tonight. I was dragging the new tractor and heard a terrible squeal.  I looked and saw that I had caught a leg of one of the birds.  I lifted the tractor enough to free it.  It limped away.  I picked it up and inspected its legs.  I couldn't tell that anything was wrong.  There were no obvious signs that anything was broken.  But, I'm not a doctor (or farmer).  I watered some plants around the yard, and checked on them again.  They all seemed to be doing fine.  I'm going keep a close eye on them the next few days.  I'd really hate to lose one at this point.