LIFE AT FARM IN LOCKDOWN

BY MITESH PATEL :-

On April 27th 2021, the State announced a complete lockdown keeping in mind the rising number of COVID-19 cases. Even though the entire State seemed to stand at a still, our farm work didn’t stop in any way. However, the movement and work on the farm were a bit slower than what it was on regular days. There was a complete lack in the availability of Human Resources. We had six people with us who got tested positive for the virus and that had a major impact on the farm at large as they were the housekeeping staff and two among them were interns. With the huge farm area and 2500+ farm animals, the work pressure was at its peak. Keeping up and managing different zones were getting difficult.

Our mornings here usually start with arranging bowls and distributing veggies, wherein new interns were not having any idea on what quantity of bowls will go in each zone as feeding animals is a tremendous responsible task. This is where I got involved and continued for few days but it was getting too hectic in the morning as I had chicks to feed also. I planned out a small document to make work easy and mentioned all the details of species-specific food and the number of bowls required for each zone. Everything fell in place in two days.

During this lockdown as there was slow construction and less movement in the farm, the birds were in the right form and have achieved quite a bit. First thing is to reduce food waste and make Macaws focus on more veggies & fruits and than on seeds. We also introduced regular supplementation of birds which included Bicalcium, Vimeral, wheat Germ oil, Apple Cider Vinegar with Mother and Liv 52. This gave the birds more adaptability towards the environment which is as of now i.e., construction activity with too much noise and air dust. Discussed with senior on the breeding of birds and enrichments I should take care which resulted after 3 weeks wherein birds had bred but fertility was missing in eggs. After enquiring for the reason, I got to know that it was due to too much disturbance around and so I continued the process of focus diet and supplementation which resulted in inbreeding in some pairs which were for the first time or have bred after waiting a long span of 2 -3 years. While raising chicks and doing feeding I got more help from Yuvraj who was a new intern and has grasp activity quickly and was thorough with feeding activity and maintaining logs.

The disturbance was still there as I was not able to manage or have look at insect culture as was not getting enough time span and was more utilized in feeding activity of our zone. Thus Lockdown created more opportunities to learn and examine more detailed breeding of bigger species of birds and also drawbacks as alone I was not able to look all zones.