feeding away from pens

[Neilsmith]

birds have been in pens 2 weeks now with plenty of feeders and waterers in pens, when should we start putting feeders around and in cover crops, a lot of the birds come out during the day now and we walk them back in at night to roost.

[decoy1979]

It's difficult to answer without a little more information and opinions will obviously differ but how old are the birds, what sort of cover are you trying to draw them to and distance from pen? Also When is your first day planned for as what's the benefit to drawing your birds away from home too soon.

[Lloyd90]

We decided to stick all our feeders in the wood to try and get the birds to stick around, not to pull them away. 

[scotslad]

It all depends on how u drive the birds.

If u were a FT keeper whistle feeding the birds to a drive a long way away would give u a different answer to a DIY type shoot that drives the pen as a main drive, ie wants to hold birds in pen area.

 

Also depend on density of birds in pen ( numbers and size).

 

So if birds only in pen 2 weeks guessing just 8ish weeks old, so have u still to dose them for gapes? And still a while till on wheat.

Personally ( esp when hopper feeding, smaller bird numbers with big pens with plenty of cover) I try to hold them tightish really until they're on wheat or getting near that age..

Just makes life easier for dosing them and not feeding hoppers all over shoot with pellets in

I would also say a pain if birds too far spread out if u get any disease problems, but keeping birds to tight/crampt can cause many diseases as many stress related.

 

I'm sure many will have other ideas, but it's wot worked for me doing smaller numbers in decent pens where not too crampt and plenty ground cover.

If pens smaller with no cover u might want to get birds out earlier

[scutt]

We open pop holes from day one but only feed in pen. We use spiced release pellets before we   ween  on to wheat with a spice additive  in pen only .At approx. 13-14 wks old after they have  wasted the first lot of wheat we fill all our feeders on the shoot with wheat  about the end of August  and lift the pen wires at the beginning of Oct. Works for us .

We get our birds mid July  AT 9 - 10 wks. old and as its a D.I.Y. SHOOT we can only visit at weekends unless we have a problem.

Just to add the shoot has drives over a large area so we have 3 pens.

Edited August 18, 2020 by scutt

[Neilsmith]

Thanks for all the advice, ill fill in a few answers that have been asked, birds are between 9 and 12 weeks old now, they were wormed just before we got them so will probably do this week.

probably be on pellet for another 3-4 weeks until the 3 ton runs out, there is 810 birds in the pen with loads of natural cover in a wood and 600 in the other 2 pens. all pens over 100 metres round the perimeter, the wood pen is about 100 metres from 2 blocks of maize and millet cover on either side of wood/pen, one pen is only 10 metres from the same sort of cover, and the other has one block 100 metres away and another block 30 metres away, then we have cover crop 300 metres from all pens. about 10 acres in total, last year we fed rides cut through maize but lost loads to pigeons and crows/rooks, so we have bought another 40 blue feeders this year. our first shoot is 31st oct if birds look good and i go and check on the birds twice a day as im retired and only live over the road. i think i have answered most of your questions. our pop holes have been open from day one.

 

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Edited August 18, 2020 by Neilsmith

[scotslad]

Thing is popholes only let bird back into pen not out,

Most shoots will have them open from day q to get any birds back in that fly out or flutter of roost outside wire.

 

Really just got go with ur gut, it might change from year to year too if u get bad poults if u have a load off poor feathered birds tail pecking u want to get wire/doors open earlier than u would normally.

Wot do u usually do? Sounds like it's a well established syndicate.

And the fact u can be there twice a day is very handy esp if u can dog back any that do wander where u don't want them to go.

 

Do u mean ur pen is 4x 100m?

As 100m total perimeter is not a big pen

[Neilsmith]

The birds fly out during the day, not all probably about a third at a time then fly or walk back in pop holes to feed and roost most poults are nicely grown on but a few are small, it was an established shoot that my mate and me were guns on that shut down, so we took it over 3 years ago so still learning, it only had 2 pens, one 100 mts round total and the other about 60mts, we extended that to 100mts and built a new one 100mts, birds have been happy enough with hardly any tail pecking.