The First Paddock

Building and maintaining paddocks is an idea that I got from our visits to UPLB Animal Husbandry schools last month.
With Sunshine Sassoo Chickens all over our farm, it has become unmanageable to have more coming every two weeks and yet we could not properly contain them.
So, the idea of a paddock for these chickens(and goats too) came into being.
The first one has just been completed, with Ipil ipil and Bamboo materials. As we released 200 young chicks on the grasses within the enclosed paddock, the chicks simply took over running here and there, picking the grass flowers as they go. I think we are saving many kilos of feeds as they happily work their way around the whole 200 sq.m. enclosure. I think these chickens will become fatter faster here then when we had them next to the staff house by the down end of the farm.
That should solve the problem of having more one-day old chicks arriving every two weeks. We just need to build more of these fenced off paddocks with nipa hut brooder house astride two paddocks. Beneath the brooder house, perching poles have been laid out for them, with water containers. I think since this is such a good shaded area, the earthworm beds (in our new plastic containers) should be best here too(that i will start doing soon). If they are positioned here, feeding them to the chickens is easier for our farm hands to do.
Around the brooder and within the fenced off paddock are many banana shrubs that not only provide cool shades for the chickens, the fruits and core of the trunk are also good picking for the chickens. I wont be surprised that we could now sell them even ahead of schedule as quicker fattening is the normal consequence of their happier environment.