I got a new batch of broiler peeps a little over two weeks ago. These are Cornish Cross meat type chickens.I have a small battery brooder that is about the right size for a batch of 25 chicks. That’s where these birds have been since I got them.
This is the first time I’ve started a batch in mid winter. At other times of the year I leave them in the brooder no more than two weeks. They grow so fast they get too big for it.
I left them in the brooder almost three weeks this time because we had a cold snap and I thought it might be too much for them to be in the pasture pen. It was just an overnight frost, only the second this year.
I put them on the pasture yesterday. Overnight lows were in the forties. They seem fine today.
I think the bigger they get the better they will handle cold. I know that in the summer the heat is a real problem for older birds.
I have customers that want chicken. I’m out myself.
