[The blue plastic swimming pool in the picture above is the temporary pond for our 2 Indian Runner ducks that also live in the pasture area.  We will be digging them a permanent pond at a later date]

We moved the chicks from their indoor brooder in our basement to outdoors at 5 weeks old. After making some repairs to our old chicken coop and putting up the pasture fence, we were finally able to get them out of the house into some fresh air.

The pasture will eventually become more of a forest pasture/garden.  It currently has a couple of young apple trees and a couple of mulberry trees.  It is about 1700 ft². We still have another area to fence in, that has more mature fruit trees and shrubs.  We plan on alternating the laying hens between the 2 areas.

Currently all 19 of our chicks are in our laying hen coop.  The coop was built to house about 6 full size hens.  We have 9 Black Australorps, 4 Dark Cornishes, 3 Barred Rocks, and 3 Rhode Island Reds.  The Dark Cornishes, Barred Rocks, and Rhode Island Reds are going to go into a chicken tractor and will be slaughtered and butchered at 12-14 weeks. Five or 6 of the Black Australorp hens will reside in the laying coop and the other 3 or 4 hens will live in another chicken tractor designed to house laying hens.  This tractor will be used to work and build permanent no-till garden areas.