Maintaining your feed and water systems is critical to keeping your game birds healthy. Be prepared to spend time checking feed and water systems in all barns at least three times every day of the week. If there are problems with either of the systems that are not recognized in a one-day cycle, your birds can get sick and/or start picking at each other. Insufficient food or water puts stress on the birds’ health, and that is the last thing you want when raising game birds.
What do we do daily?
- Make sure there is feed and water in the systems and that they are full morning, noon, and night.
- Check to make sure the systems are running properly. That means no water leaks and no feeding system deficiencies.
- Call the maintenance crew when problems are found. They know the systems well and take care of repairs and parts replacements.
What kinds of systems do we use?
- We use half-inch pex water lines and fittings. They are very affordable and the way the system crimps together keeps the water system from being knocked apart by big birds.
- We use automatic waterers or “bell waterers” called plassons that are adjusted to bird chest height. Each plasson has its own shutoff valve to protect in case of leaks.
- We use Cablevey and Chore-Time feed systems. These are automatic systems we can set to a timer to run at various times in the day, ensuring feed is always available in the feed pans. Cablevey is a disk system and Chore-Time is an auger system.
- Chicks in the A room (first three weeks of life) use the Cablevey system, a feed trough/chain system, and some are hand-fed with feeders.
- Chicks in the B room (after 3 weeks of life) all use the Chore-Time auger/feed pan system.
How often do we run into problems?
- Water system problems can occur frequently. Birds can knock fitting on plassons loose by bumping into them and making them spin.
- We can get large leaks from big birds knocking a plasson line off.
- Occasionally we run into water-pressure problems from our well. If the well malfunctions or water-pressure reducers malfunction, we can get too much pressure, causing a leak in the lines.
- Feed-system problems happen less often but can occur when something gets stuck in the system or there is an electric malfunction.
If you want to raise healthy birds you have to be persistent and constant in your assessment of the feed and water systems. If you would like more information about our equipment or our feeding and watering processes contact us at [email protected]. Knowledge, preparation, and persistence go hand in hand!