Backyard Broilers -- Round 2: Week 3

The broilers have gotten big!  There just isn't enough space for them in my garage.  Even with them split into two groups there isn't enough room.  Twice now one of the birds has escaped.  The other day I found one standing standing next to the cage looking confused.  My son said that the same thing happened today.  It must've jumped out of the tub.

The lack of adequate space leads to a huge mess.  They are knocking over their food and water and they're getting pine shavings everywhere. 

They've scattered pine shavings everywhere.  It's actually worse than what's shown here.

They are 3 weeks old and have most of their feathers.  So I decided that today some of them would move into the yard.  The forecast doesn't show it going below 50* for the next week.  I didn't want to put all of them out there just in case they can't manage when it's that cold.  It's better to lose half than all of them.

I put a larger waterer in there with them.  I need to hook up the one I used last year.

  They seem a lot happier in the tractor.  They certainly have a lot more space. 

It didn't take them long to find the food.  They were scratching and pecking at the ground as well. 

As for the remaining 8 birds...  I split them up between the cage and the tub.  Maybe they'll have enough room with just 4 in each.

 They sure do eat a lot.