Each year, Sycamore Grove Farm welcomes a new batch of chickens to our flock. We get a different breed each year so we know how old the chickens are. We received 11 adorable Golden Comet chicks from Mt. Healthy Hatchery in Mt. Healthy, Ohio on March 16, 2024. The chicks will spend the first 6-8 weeks under a heat lamp in their first home (called a brooder) in a special room in our house. We are always amazed at how different they look coming out of the brooder and going in! We thought it would be fun to document their journey from brooder to barn so everyone can share in their journey.
Cute and fluffy, our chicks are one day old when they arrive at our home. They walk a bit hunched over, and when they go to sleep they topple forward and face-plant into their bedding! They have a very soft chirp, and are curious about everything. They sleep most of the day. Without feathers to keep them warm, the temperature in their brooder needs to be kept at 95-100 degrees.
At one week old, the little chicks are already starting to get their feathers. Their wings are the first to start to feather out, and if you look close, you can see their little tail feathers come in. At the top of its beak, you can make out the beginnings of a comb. They are starting to perch, but it is still more sitting than actual perching. The brooder temperature is still high, at 90-95 degrees.
At only two weeks old, the baby chickens are starting to look more like their grown-up cousins in the barn. Their legs are getting longer and they are less hunched over. Their feet look too big for the rest of their body! Their wings are almost fully feathered out; however, they still have fluff on their head, neck & parts of their back. While they do have more feathers, they don’t have near enough to regulate their body heat. Therefore, the brooder is kept at a toasty 85-90 degrees.
The chicks are three weeks old, and are about halfway through the time they will spend in their brooder. Chicks usually get too big for the brooder at about 6 weeks, when they will be moved to a heated coop we keep in the garage until it is warm enough to move them to the barn. This week, we put a screen top on the brooder since they are much more active and are now “flying” around, which is really just hopping and flapping at the same time! The brooder is still quite warm…80-85 degrees.
The chicks are now four weeks old, and we are starting to play the game that farmers call “Hen or Roo?” The hatchery is great at determining the sex of the chickens, but sometimes you do get a rooster in the bunch. Farming lore says you can tell by their behavior, by if they have a more pronounced tail feather (females start out larger), or if the feathers on their wings are uneven (female) or straight (male). At the end of the day, the only way to find out for sure is if they start crowing or at 4-5 months! Our (hopefully) girls are still growing bigger every day. Their brooder is now kept at around 80 degrees.
This weekend was moving day for the girls. At five weeks, they have outgrown their brooder and we needed our spare bedroom back! We moved them to the chicken coop in the garage. They were very nervous in their new home at first, but are adjusting nicely and enjoy the extra space to flap their wings and the many places on which they can perch. They are still not fully feathered-out, so they need to be kept at a toasty 75 degrees. But the feathers coming in are starting to reflect the golden brown color they will eventually become.
We have reached week 6 with our baby chicks, and can breathe a small sigh of relief. While they won’t be fully feathered out for another couple of weeks, they have enough feathers to keep themselves relatively warm. They are less timid, and instead of running from us we have to scoot them out of the way. Their personalities are showing, and they interact with us more, running to greet us when we open the coop. Their combs are becoming more prominent. When they are fully grown, their combs will help to keep them from overheating. We still need to monitor the temperature in the coop, which needs to be kept at 70 degrees.
The girls are 7 weeks old, and we have moved them to the hen-house in the barn. This is usually done around week 8 or 9, but the warmer weather has allowed us to do this a bit earlier. They have a lot of things to climb on and explore, and they are settling in nicely. They can see their older cousins through the fencing and, more importantly, the rest of the flock can get a bit more used to them before they are allowed to interact. While they are getting bigger, they are still pretty small compared to the rest of the chickens. This is the last week we have to worry about temperature, as they will be fully feathered-out by week 8. They only need to be kept at 65 degrees.
We have finally reached the 8-week mark where the chickens are fully feathered out. We no longer have to monitor the temperature of the hen house and they are able to keep themselves warm. They are getting very used to their routine, perching at night and digging and scratching like their older cousins. With the larger birds just outside their door, it is easy to see how much further they have to go to before they are done growing. They are 1/2 the size of the full-grown chickens, and not nearly as loud! They still have their cute baby chicken “chirp” compared to the loud crows & squawks the older birds grace us with every morning! Since they are still on grower feed vs. the laying feed the rest of the flock gets, we will need to keep them separated for 4 more weeks.
At 9 weeks, the babies are starting to show signs of becoming laying hens. While their bodies still have a lot more growing to do, we are seeing important changes in other ways. Although they are all growing at different rates, many of the chicks have more pronounced and darker combs. And notice the waddle beginning to form under the beak of the bird on the right. These will develop and get bigger as they become more ready to begin laying. In addition to dark red combs & waddles, the whites around their eyes will also turn red. Once this takes place, egg-laying is just around the corner!
The girls are now 10 weeks old, and they are only a few weeks from joining the rest of the flock. They are paying attention to the older birds and are very curious about life outside their hen house. They have established a pecking order; you can tell which are the more submissive birds because they will squat down when you go to pet them, while the dominant ones run right up to you! Where they roost at night is also very important to the hierarchy. There is always a bit of a scuffle at bedtime as they jockey for the best position on the sawhorse that they use as a perch.
The girls are 12 weeks old, and they continue to grow. Their combs are getting bigger and darker, and you can start to see red filling in around their eyes. They have not started clucking yet, and still talk to us with sweet chirps! It’s too soon to tell if we have any roosters in the flock, but now is around the time they might start to show signs. And while most roosters don’t crow for the first time until 16 weeks, they can crow as early as 12! Their tail feathers are longer than hens, and they will start to grow long, pointy feathers on their necks called hackles. At this age, cockerels (young roosters) will also be bigger than pullets (young hens). Still, the best way to tell if your chicken is a hen or a roo is if it lays an egg. And we still have several weeks to go before that happens.
At 16 weeks our chicks are looking like their older cousins, as you can see from this picture. Their combs have gotten much larger & their waddles have developed. Both of these are now a nice bright red. The majority of them have begun to have the whites of their eyes & their ears also turn red. This is a sure sign that they will begin to lay soon. Since Golden Comets tend to be early layers, we will probably start collecting eggs from them in about 2 weeks. We have also made the transition from keeping them in the hen house to integrating them into the flock. This doesn’t always go smoothly, as the older chickens work to teach these newcomers the pecking order. Still, it is an essential part of a happy flock for each chicken to know their place. As hard as it is to see them get literally picked on, it is important that we let the process play out.
Our little chicks are now 18 weeks and are full-grown, laying hens! At least most of them are. There are a few stragglers left who have not started to lay, but they will begin before too much longer. Their eggs started out to be very small, but are getting bigger almost every day! It is amazing how quickly they learn the laying places in the barn. Their instinct is very strong, and I am sure they watch their older cousins to see what to do. We always enjoy watching them go from puff balls to full grown, and we hope you have enjoyed this journey as well! It certainly has been fun sharing it with you.