I moved the brooder/tractor I built out of the garage this weekend and into the yard. It was funny watching the chicks in their new home, they weren't sure about the grass under their feet. They had been on wood shavings in the garage. But, they acclimated quick and seemed pretty happy with their new surroundings.
Man, these things sure grow fast. They are only 2 and a half weeks old now.

Love it when they finally get out of the garage. I have 35 coming this week. I'm gonna try brooding them outside this time. Should be warm enough now. Our last batch was in April.

This is our first go with meat birds. We've had egg birds for a while, so chickens aren't brand new. We are doing 24 this go around. Will probably do 2 rounds next year.

A friend got his pheasants in early May and we hit 25 degrees the first 3 nights he had them. He was running 5 heat lamps to keep the brooder at 80 degrees.

You running a heat lamp or not?

I have a heat lamp on my chicks during the night. but the day time highs are 90* and humid. Its cheap insurance in my opinion, they can't handle cold very well when they aren't fully feathered out.

How do you plan on processing them? Do it yourself or pay someone to do it for you?

I have a 100 watt bulb in the enclosed part of the tractor, keeps it about 80 degrees when the ambient air temp is 60 or so. I ran a heat lamp the first week and a half or so to keep the temp around 90.

Its been in the mid 80s and humid here, with very little wind, so the days have been fine for them.

I am processing them myself.

Looks Great !

Nice.....we are on track to start egg laying around October

Next week or two I am going to finally get the old coop moved up to higher ground and start the rebuild. Depending on when that happens, we may get egg chicks this fall, or I will get them next spring. I really miss having the egg layers.

What breed do you have?

We had production reds, but I am thinking of going with barred rocks this go around.

Yea I'm gonna run 1 lamp at night. It's been staying in the 70's at night. We have 17 egg layers right now with y more coming with the meat birds. We have a mixed flock of eggers but the meat birds are jumbo cornish. In about 8 weeks they dress out 7 to 8 lbs typically.