First there was the Egg McMansion. Then Cluckingham Palace. Behold the Chick-Inn: Bracken Brae Farm’s new housing for young chickens.
Linda Sakiewicz and Claude Hughes of Bracken Brae Farm keep their chickens on pasture, with a barn for shelter and laying. Linda and Claude wanted to expand their flock to produce more eggs for Weaver Street customers, like you! The most efficient way to do that was to move care of baby chicks to a separate dedicated space, freeing up the main barn for more adult hens. As Linda thought about how to design a small building to dedicate to the care of chicks, she applied for an Orange County Economic Development Grant to help her achieve this goal. This grant program assists farmers in developing new sources of agricultural income through cost-share grants. For Linda and Claude the grant provided important assistance in adding this resource to their farm.
The project began in March. Four members of the Chapel Hill Highlanders Rugby Club helped Claude and Linda deconstruct an old shed in their pasture, in exchange for a donation to the team. Then in May, the new construction began. The resident chickens looked on, eating any worms unearthed in the process. When the framing, roofing, electrical work, and concrete pouring were done, Linda painted the Inn green to match her egg carton labels, and the chicks moved in.
The ten-by-twenty foot Chick-Inn has a feed storage room and a room for the chicks. Electricity runs heat lamps during cold weather and a fan during warmer months, and windows provide light and ventilation. A half-glass door allows Linda and Claude to check on the chicks without entering the room. There are roosting bars for perching, and small doors to allow the chicks access to a fenced in yard when they reach four weeks of age. In the yard, the chicks begin to forage for seeds and bugs and meet the older chickens and the guard dogs. Shade covers provide shade and protect the chicks from overhead predators. When the chicks are old enough, they join the adult flock.
Bracken Brae Farm allows their hens to live out their lives in the flock, so many are laying at several years of age. Linda told us that sometimes the white in eggs from older hens will be thinner. There is no change in the nutritional quality except for a bit more water. “We consider it a badge of honor that they can keep laying for many years!” says Linda.
We also talked to Linda about the winter egg supply. Bracken Brae Farm’s long-standing practice with their hens is not to use artificial lights on timers when the photoperiod is short (fall and winter). This reduces the number of eggs produced but allows the hens to spontaneously and more gradually moult and have an interval of recovery. Their laying resumes and steadily increases after the winter solstice. The practice seems to extend each hen’s number of productive years as a layer. Bracken Brae Farm is working to increase its number of laying hens, and the Chick-Inn will be a big help.
The current batch of Chick-Inn chicks arrived October 13 and will begin laying in April. The batch that arrived on June 29 are laying now, but their early “pullet eggs” are small. (The biggest pullet eggs are in our Southern Village store as medium eggs.) In about a month, the eggs will be full size and available in both the Hillsborough and Southern Village stores as large eggs.