The need for good and non adulterated feeds in poultry farming business can’t be over emphasized. Good feeds necessitate proper and fast growth, high production of meat and egg and invariably high revenue. Overcoming the trend of low quality feeds can be overcome easily if you compound feeds for your chickens yourself, doing that you will guarantee quality feeds.
After the problem of low quality feeds, farmers are still faced with the problem of proper feeding practice for their chicks/ chickens. Some underfeed to conserve feeds, to them to maximize profit but unknowingly this might cause diseases in chickens and death in some cases.
Some farmers on the other hand over feed their chicken in the view to maximize their profit and often end up wasting much resource that they hardly broke even after sales. This and more are the frequent challenges to farmers in poultry farming business. In this article we will discuss the various feeding process and the proper feeding practice that guarantees good health, maximum production of meat or egg and high revenue after sales.
READ ALSO: Poultry Feed Production Business in Nigeria.
READ ALSO: Poultry Feed Production Business in Nigeria.
Every farming business/ husbandry have its own feeding practice, the pig farming business for example – the pigs can thrive healthily on one square meal per day, the Grasccutter on the other hand can thrive healthily on two square meals per day. But the poultry chicken requires feeding round the clock i.e. three times daily with water. Recognition of this is the step to proper feeding practice in poultry farming.
Secondly, still in the family of chickens some species requires different feeding habits- the major breeds of poultry chickens reared in Nigeria are the Broilers, Cockerels and Layers. This various breeds have different feeding practice. Thirdly, the age of chickens also dictates the feed and feeding practice to adopt. The way a day old - 1 week chicks differs from the way 2 weeks – 4weeks chickens are feed. For example the best feeding practice for day old – 1 week chicks is FORCED FEEDING.
FORCED FEEDING- Day old chicks -1 week requires extra care to ensure growth while avoiding death. Mortality rate in these chicks is high of about 6-10% during this period due to issue of reluctance to eat and nervousness. So, special care is taking to feed and water these chicks to ensure they pass through this period. Force feeding is therefore employed -employing methods like gently tapping the feeding can, use of colored marble or pebbles placed in feeding can to attract chicks and encouraging them to feed.
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Conclusively, the breed and age determines the feeding practice to adopt. Nevertheless, avoid underfeeding and overfeeding to achieve your sole aim of investing- profit making.