Farming & weekly Agricultural news and guide by pamoja tuboreshe ukulima interaction
What should come first, the chicken or the egg?
The egg.....
As a farmer who aspires to become a big-time
poultry keeper with a big chicken farm, buying eggs and incubating them is a cheaper farming method.
However, for a first-time farmer, this process can be costly and one that requires
expertise. Those two phrases are quite contradictory but continue reading, and
you'll understand why;
● I visited chicken farms near me, and noticed that a farmer requires to learn how to incubate chicken eggs. Learn how long it takes to incubate chicken eggs and what temperature to incubate. Invest in a good incubator first which automatically turns the eggs as this is much easier to work with than the manual one.
●
The incubator;
➢ For your chicken farm, ensure that all your
incubation equipment is working properly. A good incubator has a setter that
controls temperature, humidity, and turning for the first 19 days. Secondly, it
should have a hatcher designed to hold the newly hatched chicks. Have a compressed air system that blows dust and does all
the dry-cleaning in the hatchery. Also, ensure there's an emergency standby
electric plant or generator.
➢
Make a checklist of all your egg
handling equipment such as egg trays and egg candler. Egg candling is important
because it will help the user manage the eggs in terms of
germ development, bloody white cells, blood spots, and meat spots.
➢
The incubating process takes 21
days to complete. Handle the eggs to be incubated with care. Stop touching them.
Avoid washing or wiping dirty eggs because it removes the protective coating on
the eggshell and exposing it to the entry of diseases and other mechanisms such
as distortion. Remember, eggshells have breathable pores.
The chick...
Learning how to raise baby chicks, is more or less like handling a newborn baby. First, learn where to buy baby chicks. You have to be very careful. Have a plan before and after receiving those day-old chicks. Also, learn when baby chicks can go out, diseases, and pests.
●
A source of heat with a backup
jiko just in case of a blackout
●
Ensure minimum ventilation to allow the escape
of extra unwanted gases but still maintains the temperature
●
Ensure to cover your brooder
with any paper such as old newspapers. The spread papers will be used as
their feeding cover area for an approximate of 4 days
●
Disinfect your area and make a foot bath for
anyone entering the chicken farm. If possible, avoid people visiting the brooder
when the chicks are still young
●
On the day of the chicks' arrival, make sure
you preheat the room to increase the floor temperature and the room temperature in general.
●
Add in the prettiest drinking
water vitamins and glucose. Once the check arrived, let them drink this for the
first hour or so.
●
Choose your feeds wisely by
reading reviews of other farmers on different food processing brands.
●
Put in place a good lighting
system such as an infrared bulb.
How to build your brooder
●
Building a brooder is simple, and
you can use readily available materials to cut the cost of production. You can
build a round brooder by joining boxes or plywood and form a circular
shape. For the Flooring of the brooder, you can use grass or Wood shavings.
Day-old chicks should not sleep on a cold hard floor.
●
Ensure a heat source is placed in a central place
in the brooder to emit an even temperature. Choose a source of heat that will
not only reduce farm overheads but will increase productivity and flock
uniformity. Adequate warmth is a key parameter to evaluate and target later
while still in the early boarding phase. A quick tip: The average brooding cost per chick should be between ksh4.5 to ksh7.5 depending on the various aspects
such as through the insulation weather pattern or season and overall farm
management. Compared with charcoal, gas brooding is more efficient, cheaper,
and easier to manage, But with gas, once the temperature is attained, the rest
is to maintain by setting the equipment. Another cheaper though inefficient
method is using briquettes, which will cost between 7.5 to 10 per bird. Since charcoal
and briquettes burn out at a period of 4 hours, this may bring a long-term disadvantage to the farmer due to
the chicks' uniform growth due to brooder pneumonia.
To answer the question earlier, I asked, which should come first, the chicken or the egg? ......There are so many things to consider and work towards religiously to get a good answer.
Tremendous job, its so attractive
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