My second visit to check on Gawad Kalinga's free-range flock turned out to be a pleasant one. There are still no mortalities (all 102 of them) and the rice hull litter i requested to be placed inside the brooder was dry and doing its job to keep the chicks warm and absorb moisture from their droppings. One thing i noticed though was the chicks were a bit not uniformed in size, i immediately checked the feeders and found out the number of feeders were insufficient for the size of the flock. Also checked their crops or "butse" and expectedly found out that some have feeds while others have none. Insufficient feeder space will lead to chicks scrambling for food and competing for feeder space. Eventually, uneven feed distribution among the flock will lead to some chicks not able to feed causing runting and obvious disparity in size. If feeding space is not corrected, size difference will further be more pronounced as bigger chicks will continue to "outbox" smaller chicks leading them to grow larger while the smaller chicks who gets deprived of feed, will continue to have a stunted growth.
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| litter and chicks both dry and doing good! |
I will be visiting the farm again next week and hopefully feeder space has already been corrected and addressed. Gawad Kalinga is also constructing new ranging buildings and ranging areas for their additional flocks and I will be looking forward to continue to assist them and provide technical information about raising their free-range chickens! Will just keep you posted for updates on their flock :)
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| two-week old chicks curious about their outside environment. They will be feeling the outdoors in a weeks time! |
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| very alert and healthy chicks :) |
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| curious about the camera that's why they are straining their necks for a better view |
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| one of the additional ranging houses built by the farm |
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| existing ranging house for their current native chicken flocks |
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