Successful Poultry Farming Tips, Techniques, Ideas

Successful Poultry Farming Tips, Techniques

Today, we discuss the topic of successful poultry farming tips, and techniques.

Tips for successful poultry business:

Poultry farming is a very profitable business, and many people are making money all over the world by farming the birds. However, to build a successful, sustainable broiler poultry farming business, you need sufficient knowledge of how to efficiently raise the birds, good management skills, and a good poultry farming business.

Poultry farming business is a very lucrative agribusiness, either egg production as in layers or meat production. Egg production seems ordinary because it pays daily unlike meat production, which is more or less like an investment. Aside from that, egg production seems the best because at the end of the production when the layers have fully reached their genetic potential, they can be sold as spent layers provide another source of revenue to the farm.

The farm shall not be located at least 100 meters from any main water drinking source and 500 meters from any other livestock or poultry farm enterprise. The farm must be fenced with barbed wire or concrete boundary wall up to a height of eight feet with an appropriately secured entrance and outlet. Proper drainage or outlet for collection and discharge shall be provided for storm runoff or waste discharges (possibly explore the tenet of rainwater harvesting). No obstruction shall be formed for any watercourse within the farm or outside the farm boundary.

A farmer has to be cautious when running a poultry farm business because any slight mistake can lead to a tremendous drop in production which is detrimental to the venture. Here are some tips to take for a successful poultry business:

Choosing a poultry farm site:

The choosing poultry farm site will be very important for a successful business. The poultry farm must have adequate, clean and fresh drinking water sources nearby. Also, the site should be free of poultry enemies and predators like foxes and leopards. The site should be easily accessible from main roads. In other words, transportation must be easy and not very difficult. The local markets must be easily accessible.

Feed and nutrition

Feeding is key to poultry farm production success, it is said to be about 75% of the total production costs.

To be profitable in the poultry farming production business, you have to minimize the costs and the mortality rate, as well as optimize the target weight of the broiler chickens. Broiler chicken stock feeds are formulated to provide the protein, energy, vitamins and other nutrients necessary for health and efficient growth of the birds.  Just like with day-old chicks, the kind of broiler poultry feeds you choose will have a great impact on the profitability of poultry farming business.

Laying birds require nutritious feed to lay economical eggs. All the nutrients required for egg production should be provided in adequate proportion. Buying finished feeds seem to be the best, but to reduce cost, farmers formulate feed themselves. This is good provided it meets all the nutrient requirements required for the bird’s growth. The birds must not be starved for any reason; this can reduce egg production drastically. Layers feed is always low in crude protein like 15 to 17% but higher in energy and minerals like calcium and phosphorus for eggshell formation, this is because layers must not be fed in a way that makes them gain weight or fat as these are detrimental to their production. They are egg producers, not meat producers, farmers formulating their feed must have this at the back of their mind.

Water should be served always, they must have access to cool and clean water because water aid egg production, and it’s about 70% of the egg composition. The water should be served cool always; the adequate temperature to serve poultry is 10°c. However, during hot season ice block can be added to the bird’s water trough to maintain the bird’s water be very cool. Feeding must be taken seriously to run a successful poultry business.

Read: How to Make Fish Meal Organic Fertilizers.

Housing for successful poultry farming business

Poultry House.
Poultry House.

Housing is a key factor to be considered. The kind of housing you need and the size of the land will depend on the size of the poultry farming business project. When choosing the location for the poultry farming business, you have to balance the need for proximity to the market, with the cost of land, labor costs, security, and very good water supply. Your broiler poultry farming business plan must take into account all the costs of running the business.

The orientation of a poultry house affects the well-being of the birds, though the well-being of the birds determines their productivity. The poultry house should be constructed or designed such that the longest side, if rectangular, faces the direction of the wind, to aerate the farm and maintain the litter dry always. Also, if this orientation is adopted, the birds will have a sufficient inflow of air to create them healthy.

There are two major systems of housing, the deep litter system, and the battery cage system. The latter seems to be the best as it is generally used by most farmers. The birds are housed in every confinement where water and feed are supplied adequately. In it, there is small or no habit of cannibalism and birds utilize their feed optimally. Poultry house must be constructed such that it protects the birds from harsh weather conditions and predators. Local birds must not be allowed into the layer pen because they are vectors of diseases and parasites. A poultry farm house shall be located on a fairly raised and properly drained site not liable to flooding. The long axis of the house faced east-west direction, to avoid direct sunlight in areas which experience heat and drought in most element of the year.

Lightning for successful poultry farming business

Why is lighting important for poultry? In understanding why lighting is important in poultry production, it’s essential to look at the birds’ biological make-up. In humans, light reaches the brain throughout the eyes. In chickens, light penetrates not only through the eyes, but through the top of the skull, via the pineal gland, and through the pituitary gland next to the hypothalamus. Whereas in our eyes, we have three types of cones they are specialized photoreceptor cells that are responsible for our perception of red, blue and green light and chickens have four types they are red, blue and green cones, as well as a cone of ultraviolet light.

Read: How to Keep Farm Records.

Layers have a particular daylight requirement, which is having 16 hours. Daylight stimulates egg production and egg production is the aim of a poultry farm business. So lightening must be managed well to have good egg production. During the rain-in period when the day is always cloudy, the length of daylight is reduced thereby reducing egg production. To mitigate this effect, artificial lightning in the form of the fluorescent bulb could be used to imitate the daylight to enhance egg production. For good egg production, 16 hours of daylight should be achieved.

Hygiene

Why poultry farm Hygiene management is important? For a variety of reasons, hygiene management is a very important part of maintaining any poultry house. While farmers from earlier generations often relied on providing medical services to sick animals, time and experience have demonstrated that strategy to be among the most ineffective means for preventing widespread disease in a poultry farm setting. Moreover, the cost associated with such doctoring can outweigh the cost of basically destroying the animals. Worse, such efforts often failed to prevent the spread of disease, while there were no more comprehensive prevention strategies in place.

By contrast, a focus on prevention of disease is not more effective at protecting flocks from spreading illness to one another but is more cost-effective as well. The disease almost always translates into loss, regardless of whether the outcome involves recovery from illness. By focusing time, money, and energy on poultry farm house hygiene, flocks can be better managed and protected from disease, even as the poultry houses are freed from the cost of doctoring techniques that often prove ineffective at arresting the most regular poultry diseases.

Poultry pen must always be kept clean. The level of cleanliness in a poultry farm house determines the level of disease occurrence. The feeders and drinkers must always be kept clean, especially the drinker to avoid fungi and bacteria growth. The water should be clean always.

Profitability in poultry farming in India

Profitable Poultry Farming.
Profitable Poultry Farming.

Poultry farming in India is a very profitable business owing to many reasons. One of the main reasons is that unlike agriculture, this is not dependent on rain, sunlight or other weather factors. The investment required here is very low. Initially, it can be started with a small flock of birds and then built up progressively. Though, it is not weather and geographical conditions dependent there is always a promise of yield and returns.

That’s all folks about successful poultry farming tips and ideas.

Read: How to Grow Beetroot in Containers.

2 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks for the important information .I will be visiting this site all the time to expand my knowledge on poultry farming.

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