More chicks hatching means the older hatches get shuffled along to larger quarters. Each hatch starts out inside in a playpen with a large heat plate. After a week or two, they go outside to an insulated heated brooder for two weeks. Then it is on to a closed coop with a heating pad, with daytime access to an outside pen. At six weeks, they can keep themselves warm, and they move to an unheated pen in the hen hotel. From there they get sorted, the boys go over the creek to the bachelor pen, the girls go into the Polish and Silkie coop, and most are sold. The Polish and Silkies are my kindest birds, and I know the little ones are safe there.
Two Silkie hens are raising broods, and their chicks are about the same age as a batch of six week olds I moved in on Sunday. Tonight I noticed those two moms are letting all the new chicks sleep in their shared nest. Interesting, usually mother hens chase other chicks away. Silkies are such great moms!