Out Chickens--Out!

I am surprised with how quickly I got tired of having chickens in the house, and they have officially been kicked out today.

The Cornish Cross breed is a breed of chicken that has been bred to mature super quickly. I am surprised that these chicks are only a week old, and they already seem so incredibly big to me. Additionally, the Chukar (a type of quailish bird) grow very quickly as well (full size in about 6 weeks). You can tell how fast the other birds are growing when you compare them to my laying hen that I bought. She is a week old, but she is SOOOOO much smaller than the Cornish Cross.

I had all 16 of the birds in the bathtub under a heat lamp, but when I got back from the store today there was a definite chicken smell in the house. Rather than continue to deal with it, I decided to kick them out.

I split up the chukar and the laying hen from the cornish cross, and I put them all out in the garage. The Cornish Cross are happily eating away pretending that nothing has happen, yet the Chukar are cold and sad to be away from their friends. The Chukar have a light on them, but they seem to feel that it's necessary to all bunch up and act cold. If the light were any closer to them it would burn them, so I think we're going to have to call it good enough for now.

As soon as I kicked them out I cleaned and sterilized the bathtub with bleach and then scrubbed the floor of the bathroom. You'd be hard pressed to see that I was running a chicken farm in it just a few hours ago.