practices.
4.4: Routine Poultry Management Practices
As a poultry farmer, you will need to perform certain routine management activities
to keep your chicken healthy and safe. These activities are:
Poultry hygiene
Debeaking
Pasting
De-toeing
Vaccination
Culling.
Let us discuss each activity in turn starting with poultry hygiene
Poultry Hygiene
The following are the directions for cleaning and disinfecting your poultry house:
Remove all portable equipment;
Remove litter. Do not store litter near the laying house;
Thoroughly sweep down all dust and cob webs;
Wash all the equipment and the lower walls and floor;
Scrub with 5% hot washing soda or 0.3% hypochlorite solution;
Treat earth floors with 1% formalin. Make sure you soak the floor thoroughly
with this solution;
Fumigate the closed house with potassium permanganate crystals and
formalin;
Keep the clean house empty for at least 2 weeks before restocking.
Debeaking
Debeaking is the partial removal of the beak of chicken. It involves shortening the
upper beak which is used for pecking and breaking eggs. It is done at the age of 6-9
days in layers or in pullets 10-14 days old. Debeaking helps to control cannibalism
and egg eating.
Figure 4.4: Debeaked chicken
Poultry Keeping & Management
Page 45
Pasting
This is when the vent of a chick is blocked by faeces. It is caused by factors such as:
Poor nutrition;
Poor ventilation leading to droughts;
Diseases that affect the normal functioning of the digestive track;
Very high or very low temperature in the house;
Depriving chicks of water between hatching and installation in the brooder.
You can treat pasting by softening the faeces with warm water and then removing it very gently. One important step in preventing pasting is making sure that the chicks in the brooder drink water before they start eating food. As each bird goes into the brooder, dip the beak into the drinker so they can get a small drink and also learn where their water source is. Other preventive measures include improving the brooder conditions such as temperature, ventilation, and feed.
Detoeing
This is the removal of the inside and back toe of cockerels at the outer joint. It is done using a hot blade to cut off and cauterize the toe. Detoeing of cockerels helps to prevent injury to the hens when the cock jumps and bushes on her with his feet astride during mating. If cocks have not been detoed, the nails should be blunted before allowing them to stay with the hens.
Vaccination and other Health Measures
All chicken should be vaccinated against the most common diseases in your area.. Table 4.1 below shows the vaccination regime and other health measures for chicken.
Table 4.1: Chicken vaccination regime
Day old Mareks Mode of administration Mainly for commercial hatcheries Day 10 Gumboro (1st dose) Drinking water Day 18 Gumboro (2nd dose) Drinking water 3 weeks New castle disease (1st dose ) Eye drop or drinking water 3 weeks (in hot spot areas) Fowl pox Wing web stab 6 weeks (other areas) New castle disease (2nd dose) Eye drop or drinking water 8 weeks Fowl typhoid Intramuscular injection 18 weeks New castle disease (3rd dose at point of lay Eye drop or drinking water Repeat every 3 months 19 weeks De-worming Drinking water Repeat every 3 months
Poultry Keeping & Management
Page 46
Culling
Culling is the removal of unproductive birds from the flock. The factors that necessitate culling of birds are:
Poor growth (stunted);
Chronic diseases that render birds unproductive (injures may be included);
Old age, such birds have low production;
Poor layers consume feed without laying and therefore they are uneconomical;
Vices such as egg eating and cannibalism.
External and physical appearance is used in the culling process of layers. What characteristics should you look for in a layer in order to select it for culling? The following table compares the characteristics of good and bad layers to help you identify birds for culling.
Table 6.1: Characteristics of good and bad layers
Good Layer Poor Layer Combs and wattles are large, warm, waxy and red The comb is small or shrunken, dry, scaly, pale and cold Eyes – Bright orange and alert Eyes – Dull and pale yellow Beak – pale Beak – yellowish in colour The vent is oval (increscent) Moist, reddish in colour and active The vent is round, dry and pale in colour it is less active Abdomen is soft, pliable and wide Abdomen hard and sometimes full The space between keel and pelvic bone is wide and can fit 3-4 fingers The space between keel and pelvic bones is small and can only fit 1-2 fingers Temperament. Alert and active Temperature: Lazy and dull Plumage : Dry and rugged feathers appear worn out due to frequenting the nest Plumage: preened and glossy. Feathers are beautiful and smooth Moulting starts late Moulting starts early Shanks are pale Shanks are yellowish Broodiness is rare Broodiness is common
Congratulations for coming this far! You have come to the end of this section on routine poultry management practices. Find out how much you still remember by doing the following activity.
Poultry Keeping & Management
Page 47
Unit Summary
In this unit you have learnt about the meaning of the term ‘brooding’ and the two methods of brooding, namely, the natural and artificial method. You have also learnt about the general management of chicken in the brooder, and especially how to prepare the brooder before the chicks arrive as well as how to manage the chicks in the brooder. Lastly, you have learnt how to manage pullets, layers and broilers once they graduate from the brooder to the poultry house.
In the next unit you will learn about poultry feed management.
Poultry Keeping & Management
Page 48
Unit 5
Poultry Nutrition and Feeding
Introduction
Congratulations for coming this far! In the last unit you learnt how to manage
poultry during the brooding phase and after they graduate to the poultry house. In
this unit we shall discuss poultry nutrition and feeding. We shall discuss the
nutritional requirements of poultry, the classification of feed ingredients, feed
formulation and lastly the various systems of poultry feeding.
Unit Objectives
By the end of this unit you should be able to:
Explain the nutritional requirements of poultry;
Formulate poultry feed;
Describe the different poultry feeding systems.
5.1 Nutritional Requirements of Poultry
Feed is the most important input in poultry production. Poultry need a balanced diet
in order to produce eggs, meat and develop resistance to diseases. The nutritional
requirements of chicken depend on their stage of development.
There are 3 stages in the life of a laying bird for which food requirements are
different. These are:
The starting and early growth stage
The pullet stage
The laying or egg production stage.
In the case of broilers, their food requirements differ at the starting and early growth
stage, since they are expected to grow into soft, matures birds, in 3 months or less.
To provide a balanced diet, poultry feed must contain all the necessary nutrients.
Which nutrients do you think are required by poultry? Think about it for 2 minutes
and then complete the following activity.
Poultry Keeping & Management
Page 49
We believe your answer included the following nutrients:
Protein
Energy
Mineral
Vitamin.
Let us briefly discuss each type of nutrient in turn starting with protein.
Protein
Poultry require protein for growth and development of muscles and feathers. Normally 15-20% of poultry feed should be made up of protein. Protein requirements are high during the moulting and growing stage as young chicks continuously produce new feathers. Laying hens moult (lose feathers) after the first laying season and so require a diet high in protein to grow new feathers. Protein is also required for the synthesis of egg protein. There are two primary sources of protein for poultry feed. The first one is vegetable protein such as groundnut, soybean cake, and maize glutens. The second is animal protein sources such as fishmeal, skim milk powder, and liver meal.
Energy
As a rule, 60-80% of poultry feed should contain foods high in energy. Energy foods are important for the maintenance of body temperature, vital functions and for exercise. High energy foods can be easily formulated using cereals such as, maize meal, oats, barley, rice bran and wheat.
Minerals Minerals are important for bone formation, eggshell formation and for optimal health status. The most important minerals are calcium and phosphorous. Examples of sources for minerals are: bone meal, limestone and burned eggshells.
Activity 5.1
Poultry nutritional requirements (Time: 10 mins.)
List down at least 4 nutrients that poultry require for normal growth and development
