How do we raise our birds?

Many people are very curious as to how we raise our birds here.  I've decided to share a little insight as to what we do to keep our poultry and peafowl health.                                                  

Eggs ready to begin hatching

                                                                                                                             Most all of our birds have been hatched on the farm.  For 3 weeks after they've hatched we keep them in our "nursery" area where they are closely monitored and kept with heat lamps and food at all times.  We keep them here for 3 weeks before moving them to our brooder because they are on a special diet, medicated feed, for their first 3 weeks.  Once they are moved to the brooder their food is changed depending on their breed.  They are then kept there until they are 2 months of age or until they are able to be placed on the ground in their own enclosure.  Before leaving the brooder they are vaccinated against fowl pox. Fowl pox is a disease transmitted through mosquitoes or other infected birds.  This is something that I will blog about in the near future.  Fowl Pox is something you should be well aware of because it is not a pretty thing to go through, it's highly contagious from bird to bird, and sadly, a minimal number     of the poultry/peafowl will not survive.**                                   

Peachicks in the brooder

Our Russian Orlof "Feed" sleeping
in the food dish as usual.  He has
a taped foot to correct his crooked
toes. Something I will blog about
in the near future.

Once our birds are outside we follow a deworming schedule to keep them as free from parasites as possible.

As we do our daily clean up, feeding and watering, we keep an eye out on all the birds for strange behavior, wounds, limping etc. so that we are able to treat them immediately.  We have certain medications on hand to treat certain things right away and for other things we have a great vet that is able to treat our birds.  If you are considering getting a bird I would advise you to make sure you have a vet that is able to treat them should the need arise.

Again, just a little insight as to what we do here for our birds.  If you have any questions or would like more specifics please feel free to contact us:

SpringhillHPC@gmail.com

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**If you would like more information about fowl pox before I blog on it feel free to visit this site.  The images are a little disturbing. We've had fowl pox here, but I've never seen a case as bad as those they have displayed.

Michigan Dept. Of Natural Resources

We by no means want to scare you, but we want you to be well aware of having your birds vaccinated.

Very busy day, plus a little trivia!

Big thanks to Laura for coming to pick up the free silky roosters we were giving away.  She took them all!!  We are happy to see that we could assist in the process of her being able to start her own silky line!


Today has been a super busy day at the farm and lots of volunteer inquiries.  I can't wait to meet our new volunteers on Saturday!


A little trivia for you. Check out this picture of one of our guests, Tater Tot...... 
Question:  What do you think happened to this peacock? (answer follows)

Tater was so curious about me with camera that I couldn't get a picture of him from inside of his enclosure without his beak against the lens. 

Answer: There is a particular gene that causes this deformity at birth.  Tater Tot has no idea that he's any different than the rest and eats with no problem.  Due to the genetic defect he will not be allowed to breed and is kept strictly as a pet.  Although we have never had this problem thus far in our breeding program, we would not continue to breed any parents that produce this defect.