The Blogging Farmer

After about 4 weeks, Cornish Cross chickens are ready for the move outside. Cornish Crosses are very fast growers. Most other breeds take more like 5-6 weeks to reach this stage. What you want to look for is feather growth. Remember, the reason chicks are placed in a brooder is because they can’t control their body heat and need to be kept warm. Feathers provide the insulation for them to do this on their own. So as soon as your chickens look like the fine specimen on the right, they’re ready for the great outdoors!

(Note: actually, because of the weather… early May was unusually frigid this year… we put off the move about a week to a week and a half. The chickens in the picture are actually a little older than normal.)

Hopefully, you have your mobile chicken coop all built at this point. If not, you had better get on that!

The process of moving itself is not complicated. First, drags the mobile coops out to where you’re going to use them. Usually, this will be at one end of a nice mown field.

Next, you need some sort of method for actually moving the chickens. A cardboard box placed in a wheelbarrow works just great. As my brother points out, it also serves to illustrate the point that “Dell = Shit”. I whole-heartedly endorse Lenovo, Toshiba or Asus, instead. But I digress.

Chickens inside the box.

Chickens in the coop.