The chickens continue to grow.  The original plan was to butcher them at 14 weeks but it looks like we’ll give them until 16 weeks to put on a little more meat.

The chickens are big enough now that they kill back just about everything on the ground in a day.  I’m hoping this includes a lot of the weeds.  We’ve been rotating the chicken tractor around the 50′x100′ foot plot for about 8 weeks.  Each row gives about a week and then we reset the tractor to a new row.

With the skirting in place the daily move has become much more civilized again.  When they where younger it was very easy to herd them all back in the pen since they didn’t leave the pastured plot and had a very group mentality.  You could just walk with your hands down and they’d all shuffle in.  Then it progressed to a little more of a chase and some strategically placed plywood to get them in the door.  As they discovered the rest of the garden it became a sprint and loud hand clapping or banging the garbage can lid.  Didn’t take long before they ignored that as well.  Then they discovered the red onions, of which I now have none left.  They were absolutely relentless in their destruction of the onions.  I started covering them with row covers but that didn’t even discourage them as they’d find ways to slip under and work down the entire row.  If they get the chance now the will still seek and destroy the yellow onions.  The only good thing here was they were so distracted you could grab them and get them back to the pen, but it was slow, one at a time.  In the progression of herding chickens I eventually started to take of my shirt and flap it high in the air running around like a madman chasing the birds home. All one at a time since they became brave and independent. It took them about three days to ignore this.  Luckily no one was around to witness these events.  And then we put the skirting on (I’ll have to post some lessons learned about the skirting, but not today). Civilized again.