Lesson Learned

We moved our meat birds out to the chicken tractor the other day because they were getting too big for the brooder. We were a little timid about the cold nights, but said if got too cold at night we'd either put them back in the brooder or hang the heat lamp inside the tractor.

Yesterday was very windy but warm. We new there was a chance of rain, but didn't bother to check how cold it would get. I guess we were lulled into a false sense of security. Last night it stormed pretty good and the wind blew like crazy.

I went out this morning to a very chilly wind. I dreaded the worst and went to check on the meat birds. Sure enough, eight had died of exposure during the night. I was hopeful they had all been able to huddle together for warmth behind the plywood wind break a put up, but these were laying out away from it. I'm guessing the combination of being wet and the near freezing wind chill was just too much for them.

So, rather than sulk about only having 13 meat birds left, let's review what I've learned from this:

- If we're going to get meat birds this time of year I need to be a diligent weather checker
- Maybe we should wait until the last average frost to get meat birds. They can't stay in the brooder more than three weeks, and the weather extremes might be too much.
- If it's going to get below 40 degrees at night (or any time), we need to hang the heat lamp out there, at a minimum.

Oh well. Lesson learned.