Raising Chickens: Part 2- Raising Older Chicks

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Now that you have chicks that have fully feathered the next stage of raising chickens begins.  This next step what me and my husband call the "teenage stage” and at this stage we move our birds outside and in our transition coop. We came up with this when we already had full grown pullets and didn’t feel comfortable putting the chicks in with them. 



As you can see this coop is fully enclosed so they are more protected from predators since they seem to have so many of them. We have had many experiences in this area so there will be more on that. When we first starting thinking about building this coop we with wanted something that wasn’t very tall, easy clean and safe. We had to hurry to build this coop so basically made it a rectangle with a human door for cleaning and a door for the birds. There are no built in roosting post but removable ones for when the birds get a little older and want to roost. Since safety was a large concern we decided to enclose the whole run. We did this by framing the whole run and then stapling poultry netting to the framing. There is also a door that swings for us to go in and out of the run so we can get to the coop.  If we could do it over again I would but linoleum on the floor for easier cleaning like we have done in our larger adult coop.  We have learning that linoleum on the floor has made a world of difference in cleaning the coop.