How to Transition Chickens to their Coop

[Music] welcome to the Valdez family Homestead and thank you so much for joining me here today if you're new to the Channel please go ahead and hit that subscribe Button as well as those notification Bells so you can stay up to date with all these new and informational videos that could help you out on your very own Homestead also go ahead and give us a like on the video because it helps us out a ton in the algorithm let's go ahead and get into today's video though I'm sure you can hear in the background those little chirps going on so yes today we are talking chickens and transitioning them from your brooder to your chicken coop and so there is lots of tips out there and tricks to transition them there is a time when it's too early so you don't want to do it too early you don't want to keep them in the brooder at all times either you want to kind of get them used to what their space is going to be every single day where they're going to be sleeping where they're going to be able to go into a chicken run and have room to roam and as well as where they're going to be laying their eggs so I just have them here in an extra room this is the kids playroom I've been keeping them in here I've been coming to get them in the mornings to take them out to their Coop so they can get used to that and we're about to go outside and I'm going to show you what I've done and and what could be some good advice to help you if this is your first time raising chickens or if this is just a video that you wanted some information to see how someone else is doing it because I do this every morning I come and get them and trust me that brooder right there I keep it clean I have to clean that thing every day but since they've been growing I've had to oh my gosh I have to clean it like twice a day they do their business a ton on there I'm probably gonna move them to a larger space as well because there as you can see they're getting pretty big here and they don't have very much room but I just put like a uh a plastic chicken wire mesh on top here so they'll have sunlight I didn't want to keep that lid with the holes on it because it kind of secludes them if I'm not able to take them outside and so this gives them the sunlight still uh from they've got a good window right here that gives them sunlight and so they really enjoy that let me go ahead and take you guys outside and show you what we've got going on and some of the things I've done to their Coop to acclimate them to that [Music] they start going wild when they're outside they love being out here and so this is an exciting moment for them each and every day I bring them out here but I just wanted to show you real quick before we get to the chicken coop so what I've done here if you're gonna put them in a brooder like this all I've done is these usually these crates will have holes like this and then I've had to drill one over here so half of it I've done just some zip ties so they're not able to push up on that on each of those corners and then on these ends right here so I want to have access to opening this up I've just taken um just some string to tie it so I can open this when I bring them out I don't gotta worry about you know cutting off zip ties each and every day so I'll just tie this up just to make sure they can't get out of here at all but let's go ahead and put them in the chicken coop and then we will go from there so I just have I like this little window here because we can just open this up and give me enough space I don't know if you can it's kind of dark in there so you I can just put them directly in there and so they don't come flying out at me and then we'll get into this I make sure that their door is closed because I don't want them going out into their run and then we'll talk about this area back here once I get them all situated in here foreign so we got them all situated in there now let me give you a look-see of what we've got going on here in the back baby chicks tend to use the bathroom a lot when they're in a stressed environment so they'll tend like I showed you the brooder I mean it's full I clean that thing super clean before I stick them back in there when it gets closer to the evening here in the morning the next day that's how much they've pooped all over their brooder so when they're in a small area like that they get a little bit stressed they tend to go to the bathroom more so when you're transitioning them to your Coop you don't want them to have access to their boxes where they're going to be laying eggs because they're gonna think that's an area where they can go poop as well you just want them to have access where they're going to be sleeping at night and of course while when they're sleeping they're going to be pooping too which is why you got to clean out their their house every so often but you don't want them to have access to those hand boxes where they're going to be laying their eggs and getting acclimated to pooping in those boxes because then you're gonna have really nasty eggs when they're laying them because they're going to think they're not only supposed to be laying their eggs there but they're gonna also think they can poop so let me show you a solution I've done to kind of block that access for them so what I've done is I've cut out a cardboard box to the exact measurements to block out these boxes here they're nice and clean because they don't have access to this area and so if you want to make something like that it's that simple just putting some cardboard there just so they don't have access back here that will keep them out of that area keeping that area clean until they're actually going to be using those boxes depending on when your chickens come of age to the maturity level which is usually around six months is when they'll start laying eggs some chickens do mature sooner and we're going to get into a little bit more of that just some more information on when you should fully be leaving them out here in their chicken coop so once they are mature enough and they're going to start laying their eggs you you know you remove that and it's that simple now getting into when is it time for them fully to come out here so when these chicks are babies they have what is called down and so it's almost like I want to say like fur it's not necessarily fur but it feels like it it feels like a very soft fur and so once they start molting and developing their feathers their chickens molts several times in their life of course when they're you know they're juveniles and then they're growing up to be hens they will molt several times and so when they still don't have their feathers fully they're still chicks and they're going to need that heat that they can't provide because that's what the the feathers protect them from the cold and um it you know it protects them from that cold weather and so once they develop their feathers is when they can fully come to being outside on a full-time basis which roughly takes about six weeks these chicks here are a little older than three weeks so they're still pretty young but they are growing at an extreme rate some chickens do mature faster than others and that'll give you that time to possibly you know bring them out here so there's there's different time frames for different chicks so at this point though they still need the warmth that they're not getting from like a mother hand so they can't be fully outside especially if you're in a colder area right here you know we're barely we're barely getting into Springtime so it's still kind of cool outside especially at night temperatures drop below 50 degrees Fahrenheit and they still need that brooder which provides roughly 80 85 degrees at this point and um so leaving them outside is just not the option they still need that warmth let me show you the stage of my chicks here so they pretty much developed all their feathers besides their heads so check out this one here you can see on our head there she still has that down that I'm talking about but if we go around her here she's pretty much developed most of her feathers of course these are she's still a juvenile so these aren't her final feathers so she's still got lots and lots of molting to go through until she's until she's gotten those feathers that are going to protect her from you know different weather especially the cold but uh let me go ahead and put her up and we'll finish talking about this so what I've been doing here is every morning when it gets up to about 60 degrees here I bring them in here and I'll leave them because you want them to get acclimated where they're going to be sleeping because they don't have you don't want them to have access to those hand boxes yet so I'm getting them acclimated to where they are going to be sleeping each and every night and they can get used to the environment one word of advice that you do not want to do with the chicks I'm guilty of this because when we first got them I hadn't built out this yet and so I didn't want them being locked up in the brooder area you know 100 of the day I wanted them to have some sunlight come out here and enjoy the weather because we've had really nice days here and so I've just thrown them in the chicken run just so they can run around a bit you don't now you can do that a few times you don't want them to get used to that though you want them to get used to knowing that this is their home this is where they're going to be sleeping all night because once they are mature hens it's going to be a tough time at night getting them in there you don't want to be chasing them into the coop at night every single night so they need to get used to knowing that this is their home and that you don't just want to throw your hands into the run and let them be in there all day because it's when they get older it's just gonna be a pain getting them into the coop what I do for a couple of hours or so uh I do give them I'll leave some food and water sometimes I'll leave them for you know a few more hours in here so I give them make sure they have food and water because they need that so I put their food and water in here with them and I'll let them be in there for a couple of hours after they're in there for a couple of hours I'll let them into their small run here that is attached to their Coop so I'll let them run around there for another couple of hours and then what I'll do is I'll make them go back in and so that's getting them used to going from their run down here back into the coop and I'll close the door there and I'll make them stay in there for about another hour or so then after that we call it a day I put them back in their brooder area and I take them back inside they've gotten really accustomed to that and so right now this is where this large run here is where I was letting them generally when I was doing stuff around the homestead here I was letting them be in here so I have completely cut off access to this large run here now when they've matured I'm also going to let them of course free range our tiny Homestead here so I'll let them free range get all the bugs around and so they'll get they'll start to get accustomed to that too so I'll let them free range and then make them go back in there so I just wanted to give you some of that advice because we live and we learn of course to hopefully would help you out with your backyard chickens on your homestead or even if you have a tiny backyard and you're allowed to have raise some chickens you know have at it chickens are one of the easiest farm animals to raise I mean there's hardly any maintenance with these chicks they are fairly easy to raise and care for on your homestead not only that if you get hands they're going to provide for you and your family on your homestead there is nothing better than farm fresh eggs that you have on your very own Homestead and tons of protein there's tons of uses for eggs of course we know we all know this like making desserts a healthy breakfast almost every morning we're eating eggs here in our Homestead so to have our very own chickens having farm fresh eggs is is a blessing of course right now the price of eggs are pretty high and I'm not saying it's cheap go run out and go get you some backyard chickens because that's not the solution either because you need to do some research on seeing how it is to raise chickens and what it requires because of course you're still going to be spending money so I don't think that the eggs are just gonna be free I'm gonna go buy me some chickens and I'm gonna have free eggs now it doesn't work that way because of course you gotta factor in the money that it takes to raise the chickens as well and of course if you got a good Homestead if they can get most of their diet from free ranging your homestead and eating bugs and living off of table scraps then yeah I mean you might not have to put in that much money to raise chickens but think about it you're also going to spend money on a coupe on a run on building things for them if you're going to do it yourself so it does still cost money so do your research don't just think you can run out and buy chickens do want to thank you guys so much for being here today hopefully this gave you some useful information on transitioning your chickens from the brooder into the coop there's tons of videos out there besides this one of course that you can watch that have helped me out as well so just stay informed because everyone has a different way of doing things some ways might be better than others but thank you so much for joining me here today and until the next one I will see you guys later foreign [Music]

Channel: The Valdez Family Homestead

Views: 55,216

Keywords: homestead, homesteading, chicken, chickens, cute, animals, ideas, tips, farm

Id: Q9nCqBQf5nc

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 13 2023