Making a Poult for it

As released birds start to explore areas beyond the pen, Liam Bell advises on the best way to deploy feeders, drinkers and cover crops

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By the time your poults have been in the pen for a month they should be feeding well, strong enough to shake off any disease challenges and, one would hope, roosting out of harm’s way. Once they have settled, started getting out and become acquainted with the area immediately outside the pen it will only be a matter of time before they start to explore areas slightly further a field.

This is the stage at which you should really start to keep an eye on things and try to limit poults’ wanderings as much as you can. if they are contented and undisturbed, they should stay within sight of the pen for another three or four weeks and keep returning to it periodically during the day.

For contented and undisturbed read fed, watered and un-harassed. Disturbance — from predators, by farming operations and inadvertently by members of the public — can and does make a difference. Predators can be controlled. Farmers, farm workers and contractors can be spoken to and asked to do things slightly differently, and someone who has come off a path or is genuinely lost can soon be put right. the closer to home the birds are for those first few days of exploring and the slower the outward move, the better.