I, Farm Boy! Limestone In Broodpens Keep Chicks Healthy Farming is a never ending experiment.

Just when you think you have perfected a system in rearing chicks and raising free-range chicken, new issues would come up.
The most critical part of raising free-range chicken actually is the first three months, especially if rainfall is frequent and heavy in the area.
While in the past, I brought the chicks to the open yard after completing the vaccination, I noticed that the cold wind at night would weaken them and they would have ruffled feathers the morning after.
Our mortality was high and so I decided to make some modifications by keeping them in the brooding pens longer than the usual one month.
Since I used Coco Peat in the broodoens because I wanted to turn this into organic fertilizer later, I found out that the moisture of the peat affected their health and it was difficult to gather the chicks’ wastes to make the pens clean.
This was when I decided to try using crushed limestone, which is abundant in our area, in the brood pens and the result was very encouraging.
Not only do the chicks love to nibble the finer limestone to serve as grits, it also proved to be easier to clean and it eliminated the odor.
So far, since we started this practice, including our introduction of the Chick Starter feeds formulated by Rocky French which prevented Vent Pasting, we had not had a single mortality.
Of course, part of our farm practice is the elimination of the runts and weak chicks early on to maintain a flock of healthy chicken in the future.
Indeed, farming is a never ending learning experience and the farm is the best laboratory.
#FarmingIsAppliedScience!