CTP... Chicken Transitioning Period

Gentlemen's Club

Springtime on Sunflower Hill Homestead, as with many homesteads and small farms, is a time when new babies are introduced. There are sweet fluffy little babies everywhere! Mid-summer (yes... I know by the calender summer just started, but it seems to have been here for quite a while!) is a transitioning period. This is the time when chickens are nearly full grown. The roosters are crowing... and fighting... and crowing. It is time for a trip to freezer camp here on the homestead. Our rooster pen seemed to be getting smaller! The boys were getting pretty big! I am an animal lover, which is why I process my own poultry rather than buying from large factory farms, but it is difficult for me. I know my birds were raised with the utmost care and had good lives and fast, easy deaths. The meat is far superior to anything store bought, as well! Brad and I put 21 chickens in the freezer last week. About half of what we did last summer, but I am considering a 2nd batch later this fall.

Sandy the Easter Egger had to check
out the camera :)

Now that the roosters (most of them anyway) have gone to freezer camp, the hens need to be transitioned to life with the grown-up chickens. I moved their hoop coop next to the hen house to allow them to get used to being in that area for a couple days. I would have kept them there longer, but there is no grass in the immediate area surrounding the hen house. Last night was their first night in the hen-house. We put them in at dusk, after the others had settled down. After a few minutes of loud fussing, without any actual fighting, they all settled down on the roosts.

Today is their first day free-ranging. I am as bad as a nervous mother on her kid's first day of school... I hope all goes well. The Easter eggers, Cochin, Brahma, and Leghorn are large and I'm not quite so worried about them. The leghorn, brahma, and one EE (Sue) have been following the older hens and rooster around and seem to be loving it! The Hamburgs are tiny, but are supposed to be really good at free ranging because they are fast. Brad calls them the "road runners" and his description isn't far off! They have been sticking fairly close to the hoop coop, but wandering a little farther than many of the others. I am most worried about the Silkies. I really hope that despite their size, they do alright. One silkie hen had a "haircut" before she went up for the night to allow her to be better able to see anything that may try to eat her on her first free-range adventure. Most of them have been hanging out inside the open hoop coop that they have lived in for so long. I have been keeping a close eye on them. I'm not sure if I am more worried about a hawk attack, or that my foster puppy "Logan" will decide to try to play with the pretty new birdies and they won't know to keep an eye out for him. So far he has discovered that he likes to run at the birds to make them scatter every once in a while, but he hasn't actually caught and hurt any of them. I sure hope it stays that way! Hopefully it is just my worrisome "mother hen" nature running a muck and all goes well. CTP can be a hectic time on the homestead! Fingers and feathers crossed!