Poultry management is the degree of exposure of poultry birds to factors affecting them. These factors may be sunshine, rainfall, wind and so on. A good livestock or poultry farmer must be very careful about these factors or else he might lose the highest amount of yield from the poultry farm.
There are mainly three systems of poultry management.
- Extensive System of Poultry Management
- Semi-intensive system of poultry management
- Intensive system of poultry management.
Extensive Systems of Poultry Management
This is the system of leaving poultry birds to roam about. It is one of the commonest for rearing poultry birds. They would leave their cage to search for food, water and survival factors. However, this might be a bit risky for the animal because it doesn’t get adequate housing, shelter, care and most importantly feeding. In this system, the population of birds is very minimal such that the area of land per bird is large.
Pros
- Low capital requirements
- Gives animal free-living instead of the caged lifestyle
- Family labour is enough to help the family
- These poultry birds have high disease resistance.
- They can adapt to any factor at any given time.
Cons
- Exposure to adverse factors for the poultry birds.
- Predators and thieves can reduce your yield
- It may cause death and wastage to the eggs and yield of the poultry birds.
Semi-intensive System of Poultry Management
In this type of poultry management, the birds are not filly caged. Instead, they are meant to move freely within a fenced area of land so that they don’t move out of the required space or stay caged. They will move around during the day and return to the caged part at night.
Pros
- Protection Against adverse weathers
- Birds are safe from the attack of wild animals, predators and thieves
Cons
- There are low capital and low yields in this
- It leads to low egg production.
Intensive System of Poultry Management
This poultry management system is a also called a caged system. The poultry birds are caged. It is fully kept from the unfavourable conditions. However, the bird is not free for grazing and pasture. Sometimes, the caged area can be floored or just sandy. It can be built with mesh wires so that these birds can stay very protected and safe.
Pros
- Protect poultry animals from theft
- It restricts the upward and downward movement of the intensive system.
- Prevent them from diseases that should not be.
Cons
- More eggs are cracked and wasted because of strained space.
- Wastage of foods for birds
- The high amount of labor and capital to do this.
Poultry farming is the culture of rearing birds for food and many other purposes. This does not necessarily mean domestic fowl it hens alone, other birds are also involved. Part of poultry farming is rearing turkey, goose, guinea fowl and duck.
Breeds of Domestic Fowl
From Gallus, the traditional breed of domestic fowl, many other breeds have evolved. These breeds have their specific purposes for the farmer that rears them. The contemporary breeds can be classified into three:
- Brown Leghorn is mainly known for its effective production of eggs. These kinds of breeds are mainly egg producers.
- Barred Plymouth Rock is known for the production of meat and egg. They don’t produce eggs alone like the formal outlined instead they produce both meat and egg.
- Astrup is also known as the meat and egg poultry bird.
- Brian Leghorn is another egg-producing poultry animal. They are just like the brown leghorn in production.
- Other meat-producing poultry birds are Sussex, Cornish, Cochin.
Equipment Used For Effective Poultry Farming
Without the necessary equipment, poultry farming might be very difficult. These birds only understand the culture of the farmer that has adequate equipment to manage his poultry farms. Below are the equipment needed to breed poultry animals.
- Focus: This poultry equipment used for housing poultry birds.
- Incubators: These are used for hatching fertile eggs from poultry birds. The eggs are specifically placed in the incubator to improve the quality of the hatched products.
- Candler: If incubators could not hatch some eggs due to infertility, there is almost no way to notice that except with the use of a Candler. A Candler is used for detecting unfertile eggs.
- Battery Cage: New chicks are in a warm, lightened battery cage that will improve their growth.
- Feeders: These are used for feeding the animals (just like their plate)
- Drinkers: They are animals that will need water and a drinker is a hygienic plastic for giving them water.
- Needle: You will need a syringe for injecting drugs into the body of the birds. This doesn’t mean the poultry birds are ill but you have to maintain their body functioning with some immune posting drugs.
- Mash box: Young chickens might not eat from feeders, so a mash box will be the best for them. Also, their food must not mix up with particles from the soil, so you must be wary of this. Give them food in the marsh box.
- Nesting box: Hens can lay their eggs more hygienically and healthily such that eggs are laid directly in a nesting box.
- Creep Feed coop and run: This is used for housing the chicken. Adequate shelter is needed for poultry birds to survive and this is very affecting for housing them.
There is still so much other equipment used for poultry birds that we all know about but might not take necessary. Examples of these materials include Broom (for sweeping off waste and faces), shovel, wheelbarrow, egg crate and so on.
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