Feed Caddy: Innovative Improvement to the Poultry Industry
The first 24 hours is the most crucial time in a new flock of young chicks’ lives. Survival is dependent upon how quickly and efficiently their transition is made from the hatchery to a new farm environment. Therefore, most poultry managers and a couple of workers spend hours each flock cycle preparing the poultry barn with feed trays, so incoming chicks can have their first meal within minutes of entering their new home. It’s hard work, but has for a long time, a standard means of preparing each new flock. Then not too long ago, before anyone could say, “there’s got to be a better way”, the Feed Caddy was born.
Engineered and developed by a Chicken Grower and manufactured on his home turf, the Feed Caddy dramatically makes life for poultry producers a lot easier and gives thousands of newly placed chicks a better chance of survival, right out of their transport boxes.
The biggest advantage of using a Feed Caddy over commonly used feed trays is that the Feed Caddy significantly increases first feed coverage in the poultry house, so that every chick has no problem in picking up its first mouthful of its starter ration. It is recommended that the paper be run between existing feed and water lines. Place between 4-6 rows of biodegradable paper with Feed depending on the width of the barn as the baby chicks require approximately 80 to 100 grams of supplemental floor feeding per bird. Everyone involved in raising commercial poultry flocks knows the importance of this first stage; within a few hours after the chicks arrival, nearly all of them should have eaten or else a number of potential starve-outs and costly high mortality might occur.
Another advantage of employing the Feed Caddy in any commercial setting is its labor and time savings. One person can set out chick starter feed with the Feed Caddy compared to one or two people filling tens of box lids, egg flats or feed trays. Furthermore, a Feed Caddy can cover a commercial barn that might be a few hundred feet long within a half hour compared to 2 – 3 hours required by placing feed trays and other feeding troughs, respectively.
Less feed is wasted too by using the Feed Caddy. This machine is designed and fine-tuned to release a steady stream of chick feed upon green paper that is synchronize to roll out as the machine keeps moving. As a result this feed is evenly distributed in a straight ribbon throughout the length of the barn. Subsequently, the operator can also easily calculate the amount of feed that was just placed, because the Feed Caddy hopper contains a predetermined amount of feed.
Calculating these same values when placing traditional trays is comparable difficult, because selected trays might be refilled, once or twice after all the chicks are placed.
Given just these few benefits of using a Feed Caddy to place feed for baby chicks, one might get the wrong idea that this is a very complex machine with lots of parts and hard to operate! In fact, a standard model of Feed Caddy can be hooked up and pulled by an ATV or small tractor.
Distributing feed by the Feed Caddy is an easy four-step process: (1) load up its hopper with chick starter ration, (2) put in a roll of chick paper, (3) open the flow feed control, and (4) put the ATV or tractor in forward gear and drive. If the operator runs out of chick paper, a new roll can be effortlessly be installed, the Feed Caddy can accommodate widths of paper from 30” to 48”.
In addition, the operator might find that too little or too much feed is being laid down to his/her liking, which is not a problem with the Feed Caddy; a simple feed adjustment can be made by adjusting the feed flow gauge. Ground speed control of the ATV or tractor can also be slowed or increased to do the same.
Every Feed Caddy is manufactured with heavy duty plastic that looks like a hopper-bottom bin on wheels. There are two tractor-pulled models (#4642 and #6044) and one hand-pulled model (#3630).
After one of these three available Feed Caddies is pulled throughout the barn and new chicks are placed, it’s still a good reminder that commercial operators should always employ good management skills. For example: on current placement day and one to two days afterwards, producers should check the crops of several chicks throughout the barn to verify that they eaten the placed starter feed and found available drinking water. Healthy crops should be soft and pliable, which indicts that they are properly eating and drinking. Unfortunately, if their crops are hard; they might have eaten some feed, but they have not found the available water source. Lastly, distended crops show the chicks are drinking water, but are not sufficiently eating the feed put out by the Feed Caddy.
Consequently, the Feed Caddy may not solve all the challenges associated with placing a new flock, but this is a list of what it can do:
- Provide instant starter feed for incoming chicks.
- Better uniform feed coverage for chicks.
- Reduces starve outs
- Lower mortality rates
- 600% increase in feed surface area
- Reduce labor and time to prepare the barn for a new flock of chicks.
- Reduce feed wastage
- Feed consumed by the chicks can be more accurately calculated.
- Also feeds turkeys, ducks, geese and game-birds.
The Feed Caddy is more than just a new tool and method to place feed for baby chicks, it is a must have for all poultry operations; and truly it is the innovative way to feed poultry.
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