By Manny Piñol
The beauty of farming is that you learn new things by listening to the success stories of others and actually doing it.
I always had the problem of keeping healthy and vigorous the chicks which are transferred from the brooder to the free range.
What I usually do is to keep newly hatched chicks in brooders for at least a month and complete the fowl.pox and NCD vaccination before they are transferred to the free range.
Ranging both Manok Pinoy, the new strain of native backyard chicken which I developed, and the gamefowl chicks is a must because it will allow them to stretch their legs and eat green grass or high protein insects.
Our “enemy” in the free-range, however, includes cold nights and sudden rains which account for very high mortality.
Two months ago, my brother Jun, vice mayor of Kidapawan City, shared with me and our cousin, Neri Sodusta who manages the farm, to try an innovation in chick rearing.
It is actually a virtual field brooder made oit of a bamboo frame covered with plastic using sawdust or wood chips as litter to keep the chicks warm.
The feeders and waterers are kept inside the plastic brooder which is closed at night or during rainy days.
On sunny days, the brooder is opened so the chicks could freely run around.
Since we have started using this plastic-covered field brooders, our chicks have shown remarkable vitality and the mortality has been dramatically reduced.
Try this in your farm.
(I took these photos of the plastic-covered brooders in my farm early today.)
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