Welcome, trust you are doing well and business is going on quite well. This time, we are going to talk on a very important topic in poultry production.
How to keep your birds laying optimally.
Some years back, when birds start laying and they hit 50% production, they start paying for their feeding but as at now, with the high cost of poultry feed/feed ingredients, your birds will need to lay around 60% to be able to pay for their feeding. This has made it quite imperative for you to ensure your birds lay optimally.
The term OPTIMAL means most desirable outcome under a restriction expressed or implied.
The ways to keep your birds laying optimally
1. Get good stock/brood your birds well: If you are buying birds from another farm, be sure the birds are well vaccinated, weigh up to 1.5kg at 18 weeks and are very healthy, these attributes determine a whole lot in the laying journey of your birds.
If you are raising them from day old, be sure you don’t joke with their brooding and rearing periods. Vaccinate well, feed well and most importantly buy from reputable farms with good records of quality birds.
2. Understand the concept of Stocking and Sorting: When stocking your birds into the pen, ensure you stock birds of same or close range weight into the same cell, don’t stock a bird weighing 1.8kg and a bird weighing 1.2kg together. Birds do bully each other and as such when the bullying takes place the bird being bullied wont lay, thus affecting your egg production.
For the concept of SORTING, I would advice you sort immediately after their brooding period and at least twice during their growing period. This action ensures only birds of the same weight are kept together, they grow at same pace and will reach laying weight at almost same time.
3. Balanced Feeding: This point will definitely need much time to explain. At each stage of their growth, birds need different nutrient values in their feed.
Chick mash/Starter: 2800-2950Kcal of energy, 21-24% crude protein
Growers feed: 2500-2650Kcal of energy, 15-17% crude protein
Pre-layers feed: 2550-2700Kcal of energy, 16-19% crude protein
Layers mash: 2650-2750Kcal of energy, 17-21% crude protein.
As they grow older, ensure you change their feed/feed formular to suit their needs. For optimal production, give some light at night to encourage night feeding, remember they need an average of 16 hours of light.
Already laying birds need between 110-112g of feed daily, if they eat more, do well to feed them as much as they can eat. Never compromise their feeding at any time, a dent in their feeding, can hamper production for a few days.
Water consumption is also part of feeding, already laying birds should consume 250ml or close to times three of their feed consumption in water. Shortage of water, will surely affect their production, egg formation to a large extent is controlled by the water intake.
Apart from death, dehydration can hinder egg production for a week, so ensure at all times, they have clean, fresh and cool water to drink, remember, weather condition affects water and feed intake.
If you make your own feed or even if you buy finished feed, be wary of Mycotoxin in feed. Routine vitamin administration also help their laying.
4. Keep away Diseases and Parasites: Try to understand the physiology of the birds, understand their language so as to know when they are not in good health condition. Always isolate the visibly sick birds to avoid disease transmission. For birds laying on floor, watch out for Coccidiosis, Newcastle disease, Fowl Cholera etc.
For birds in cage, watch out for Newcastle disease, Fowl cholera etc. As preventive measures, some farms administer Antibiotics once every three months, Lasota (anti Newcastle) every 4-8 weeks depending on disease prevalence.
If there is anything never to compromise, its your farm hygiene, good hygiene not only keeps the birds healthy but reduces cost.
For parasites, watch out for lice on their body, mites and intestinal worms, birds with intestinal worms, pass out foamy faeces. Its important you deworm and delouse every 10-12 weeks. Keep out rats, they are natural carriers of lice. Good farm hygiene is very essential here.
5. Understand weather and environmental conditions: As the weather changes, your mode of management of the birds should also change. Hot weathers demand different management pattern from cold weathers.
From research, it has been proven that for every 1 degree drop in temperature below 20 degrees Celsius, birds will eat additional 1.5g of feed. It is worthy of note that birds thrive best in temperatures between 20-24 degrees Celsius.
Birds eat more during cold weathers and less during hot weathers. When the weather is hot, it is expected that you serve them when the weather is coolest and ensure they always have cool water to drink. This understanding will help you ensure your birds lay optimally all year round.
Inclusion of vitamin C in their feed or water during hot weathers help alot, even use of oils in the feed help alot, oils digest faster than grains thus reducing the internal heat of the birds. Some farms go to the extent of installing foggers, fans in their pens to reduce the heat during hot weathers.
6. Meet target weight: In animal production especially poultry production, the concept of weight and its importance cannot be over emphasized. Your target from the brooding stage to week 18 should be that your birds weigh on average 1.5kg at 18 weeks. Birds that weigh 1.5kg at onset of laying, lay faster and longer, if you force them to lay quickly even when they don’t weigh up to 1.5kg, it can lead to some health complications like prolapse, cloacal tears which can bring about anal pecking.
The weight gain should be in form of muscle and bone growth/enlargement than in body fat increase to avoid fat accumulation when they grow older.
7. Spend money to get money: When we say SPEND MONEY TO GET MONEY, we mean don’t be stingy to your birds, they act on the GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT TECHNIQUE. If you are to buy some medications for your birds and you see one for 500 naira, the other you were told goes for 1200 naira, some will say they will do the same work the same way, this statement might not necessarily be true.
If they will do the same work the same way, their prices would have been the same. The active ingredients differ, the composition of each ingredient differ, the company reputation also differ. So if its within your power, go the EXTRA MILE to ensure the birds get the BEST and they will in return give you their BEST.
These are some of the most popular and effective ways to keep your birds laying optimally all year round.
Enjoy your investments in the beautiful world of Agriculture.
For more information on how to manage your laying birds, get our quality Ebooks on Layers management and Poultry Feed Formulation at 1500 each.
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0022034420
Adegbamigbe Adewumi
Stanbic bank
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To your SUCCESS. NiO Agro.
Good one
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