Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[pumkinsmummy]

The chicks are now 6 weeks old and are growing lovely. My next door neighbour has asked for her eglu back, but the chicks are surely too young to be introduced to the rest of the girls and to live in an cube. When are their legs strong enough to climb up a ladder - we have a wooden coop with enclosed ladder I could put them in for the next 8-10 weeks - would this be OK?

When we free range the girls, all of them are out an about so the chicks are quite feisty and one will even steal food from under the Sussex s nose - so I am hoping there will not be too many probs. The Mummy has been pecked a bit tho, so I am hoping she will go back into the cube OK. She is laying again so when does she leave the babies to join the others?

Any suggestions welcome - thank you

[Egluntyne]

She can leave the chicks now that they are 6 weeks old. However, I would be very cautious indeed about leaving the chicks to the mercies of the older hens if she is not with them. In fact, I wouldn't risk it, personally.

 

I'm sure the wooden coop with the enclosed ladder would be fine. If they struggle a bit with the ladder, I'm sure you would be able to rig something up to help them get up it.

[WitchHazel]

When our chicks were small we used to put them in a Go for brief intervals so they could get used to grass and being outside. Gradually we increased the time they were allowed outside, and we had an electric hen in the back of the Go so they could snuggle if they needed to.

 

When they got a bit bigger they needed more space (we had 33 of them at the time), so we moved the whole operation into the Cube. Again, they had the electric hen during the day. (And for the first couple of nights when they were out of their brooder permanently).

 

So that they could get up and down the ladder easily, DH built a closely spaced wooden ladder which we hooked over the cube ladder. The chicks managed this with no problems at all (although of course it took them a little while to get confident with it).

 

Here is a pic of the ladder with the chicks using it. I think this was the first time they saw the ladder (we started with them in the Cube so they had to go down).

 

 

Edited to add: I'm not sugesting you put your chicks in with your big girls in the cube - I;m jyst showing that they can manage a ladder.

[WitchHazel]

I've just remembered something!

 

Before we put them in the Cube and the ladder on the Cube, we got them to practice going up and down the ladder while it was tied to some netting. We put lettuce at the top to encourage them. I'll find a pic and upload it

 

Initially we put it against the Go run, so it wasn't too steep an angle and the chicks could get to it from the top of the Go run, or they could climb it, or whatever.

 

Then we made it steeper putting it against some netting:

[sjp]

my 7 week olds can get up onto the platform in the big girls run and thats 4ft up at first the jumped up on to the lower pearch which is about 2 ft up then on to the platform then jumped off to the floor they have been getting onto thier run roof which is just under 2ft for about 4 weeks