Preparing a Chick Brooder for Cold Weather // Raising Meat Chickens {Week 2}

Below-freezing temperatures are in the forecast – how are we preparing our baby chickens to handle the cold?

We’re raising Cornish cross meat birds for the first time and want to share the whole experience with you. We’ll be releasing a new video each week all the way through butcher day detailing things that surprised us and what we’re looking forward the next week.

🐓 Raising Meat Chickens in 8 WEEKS!: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiBilDABA650M3S7ASEwunXTy-0KVzOVF
🔔 Subscribe for more from the farm! https://www.youtube.com/c/GWPHomestead?sub_confirmation=1
➡️ Shop our Amazon Storefront for farm essentials and our favorite odds and ends: https://amazon.com/shop/gwphomestead

We purchased 30 Cornish cross females from Meyer Hatchery. Cornish cross are incredibly fast growers – from hatch to butcher in only 8 weeks. We’ve done quite a bit of research on this and feel very well prepared but everyone knows there’s no replacement for experience. If you’ve thought about raising meat chickens but just haven’t made that commitment yet I hope you can look to our experiences as something you can learn from. If we can do it, so can you!

💪 AVG. WEIGHTS:
Week 1 – 3.8oz
Week 2 – 12.0oz

These birds are growing incredibly fast and they’ll be nearly fully-feathered by the end of the week. Once they get to that point they’ll be much better at regulating their internal temperature but for now an external heat source is still required. Because we wanted butcher day to come before the heat and humidity of summer arrives we are dealing with some of the unpredictability of Kentucky weather. It was 70°F a couple of weeks ago and now we have multiple nights below freezing in the forecast (and some are thankfully already in the rearview mirror by the time this video goes up).

We’ll be transitioning the chicks off chick start and onto meat bird grower feed next week. We also started feeding them on a 12 hour ON/OFF rotation to prevent them from overeating and making themselves sick. If the weather cooperates we’ll move these meat chickens into the chicken tractor next week but I worry that we’ll have a few nights that are just too cold for that. As it is with everything flexibility in this endeavor is key.

There are lots of exciting things happening on the farm right now and we’re excited to share them with you! Please like this video and subscribe to the channel if you want to see more. Share this video with a friend, too – it really helps. See y’all soon!
-
Subscribe to our channel! We have a small farm in Western Kentucky where we’re raising our family and a handful of critters. Come grow with us.

★ Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gwphomestead/
★ Watch us on TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeckuB1v/
★ All the goodies: https://linktr.ee/gwphomestead
-
Tools & supplies we like and use:
⭐️ GoPro camera tripod mount: https://amzn.to/3h8N74G
⭐️ Clamp mount for GoPro: https://amzn.to/3BIXnKq

Some links may be affiliate links. It doesn’t cost you any extra and we get a few cents back when you use our link. Thank you for your support!
-
#homestead #meatchickens