Inspection Help - Experienced Breeders please - need ideas

[Folly's place]

Check craigslist for dog crates, often available, and perfect for this use. Top opening, no, but still will work. And tipped up, they become top opening.
Chasing birds is such a pain!
Mary

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Honestly, when I posted this, I was hoping you would be one of the ones to respond @cmom. Do you know at what number of birds (roughly) they start testing only a sample of the flock???

At this point, I have my elder birds (the ones that have breeds attached, so 17, plus the two remaining mutts from the end of December, Sleepy and Sneezy (aka Pretty Boy) my main Roo, plus 10 from the late February hatch I have to assume are breeders (or soon will be), so 29 birds. Then I jump to the late May birds, who will be 11 or 12 weeks at the time of testing. Unsure if they will want to check them or not...

I guess its not quite so bad as I thought it might be, due to my choice to hatch ducks March/April.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

The inspector has probably seen every containment system out there. If you called him, do you think he would share any ideas? After all, it's going to make his life easier.

He seemed amenable to the idea of a chute, last time, but had no suggestions. He was just happy I had a folding table and a trash can set up for him!

 

[cmom]

I actually shut the birds in their coops the night before my testing date and in the morning put them in the cages all lined up in the shade outside of the barn so we can work in the shade and less stress on the birds and as I mentioned previously, as the birds are tested they go back into their coops. This just works best for me since I have a lot of birds. I have chased birds before and not going to do it any more.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

I sorted out and locked into the coop the night before - but my coop door is 4' wide and 6.5' tall, and that's the raised coop. SO as soon as I cracked it open, they tried to rush out, except the ones who hid underneath and forced me to crawl around in the 3' space under the "floor"...

NEVER doing that again. Just thought I had another month.

 

[cmom]

I believe the tester does 20% but I'm sure I have a few more. She probably tests close to 100 birds and it takes probably a little over an hour and a half. We have a regular production line going when we get started and it goes pretty quick with probably close to 100 birds.

 

[cmom]

Luckily all of my coops are walk-in coops.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

So, i already had a hole in my barn, and a very simple grow out pen inside. Some posts and netting, basically.

It got an upgrade today, so i have a place to hold the breeders for inspection/NPIP certification.

Sorry for the photo quality.

That's the two week old hatchlings in the PVC and netting mobile cage in the corner, inside the snow fencing.

This is looking over the netting into the run.

Inside views

Dimensions i think i said before are about 13.5' x 4'. That's a 2x6 at shelf height with a piece of waterproof L trim along the back to keep things from falling in, and yes, a jar of electrolytes in the pocket at the top of the door.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

That's Thyme in the picture, our youngest and smallest goat. Plus some construction materials for the house. He's responsible for the hole in the netting in the second picture. Honestly, the netting was a great idea, until I had the great idea to get goats. Until then it was cheap, easy to move, and worked well at partitioning birds while letting them see one another.

 

[Tre3hugger]

I just had my flock tested. I didn't open my coop door the morning of. I would go in the coop, grab 2 or 3 birds at a time, and after they got tested I'd release them into the run. Repeat until coop is empty!