Four layer chick brooder, suitable for most types of poultry.
Expecting 60 Buff Orpingtons in on or about next Tuesday. All male, all destined to be capons.
Going to be having quite a few more birds come in between now and May. I have several neighbors (and relatives) that will be picking up most of the birds, once they have reached six weeks (and have been caponized if necessary).
Nice thing about this setup is that you can brood newly hatched chicks on one layer, and chicks at various ages on the other layers as you can set heat independently for each layer.
They leave the brooder at the end of about 5 weeks. They spend about one or two more weeks in a pen in the same room until they are fully feathered and can regulate their body heat, at which point they go to the barn. About one or two weeks later will be caponization day. I can probably caponize 60 birds in about 40 minutes.
Nice. My 4th Daughter is raising chickens in her back yard in Baltimore. The city has a strict 10 bird limit for home coops. She has laying hens and 2 roosters.
Our property is zoned Rural Agricultural, so we can pretty much do as we please in regards to number of animals. These days, usually have about 10 or 12 laying hens, plus pullets as needed. Our biggest numbers are capons and heritage turkeys, which we slaughter when they reach weight.
No roosters though. Any male coming in sees the caponization knife.
Time flies by. One day they are yellow fuzzballs, the next fully feathered mini adults.
They reached 6 weeks of age on Tuesday. And we caponized all 60 without incident that morning and all within about 20 minutes.
In the process of acclimating them to the outdoors, though they won’t go outside full time until 8 weeks of age, at which time the neighbor’s will be taking their respective 20 birds home, with the other 20 being mine.
Then they get to enjoy life. Until slaughter time in August.
