Thursday, May 24, 2007

Baby Poultry

The baby poultry has been growing soooo fast! It's hard to believe that they're already six weeks old now. They're about 4 weeks in the photo to left, enjoying their temporary run outside their stall. They're now all out on pasture in their temporary paddock, which will rotate around a permanent pasture, moving twice a week. We bought our fencing from Premier, and it's wonderfully easy to move and hook into our existing electric. We bought enough to create temporary paddocks for all our animals, enabling us to move into an intensive rotation system that will help protect our pastures and our animals' health.

2 comments:

Omelay said...

we are looking for some fencing solution to paddock our goats. i'm going to do a search for this type because it looks perfect--if it's as easy as you say.

Danielle said...

Well, "easy" might be too strong a word, though it really isn't difficult to move. The hardest part is getting the posts into our drought-stricken ground.

What you see here are all the new birds: ducks, geese, pullets, straight runs and broilers, about 90 or so birds. We move them twice a week, and tbh, I wouldn't house the geese and ducks with the other poultry again—they're way too messy. But, it was the expedient thing to do this year.

Our laying hens have their own run surrounding their mobile coop, and we move that once a week.

The other animals, because their numbers are so much lower, are on a much slower rotation.

Jim moves the layers in the coop before he lets them out on the weekend. The kids help us move the meat birds, and it takes us maybe 20 minutes to do. The birds and the kids are getting a hang of how to do it—well, and the adults, too—so it's becoming easier each time. I figure by the time most of them are ready to process, we'll have it down pat and be ready for another go 'round in the fall.