As you know, chicken is a very common poultry. People grow it to get meat and eggs, which are very useful for the human body, and they use it to prepare a large number of culinary dishes. That is why the cultivation of chickens, from which then a full-fledged healthy chicken grows, is considered a very profitable occupation and allows you to recoup all the financial investments spent on it. However, before deciding to raise chickens at home, it is necessary to carefully study the subtleties that this time-consuming business has. Only in this case it will be possible to get a full healthy chicken from fragile small yellow lumps and do without loss.
Chicken Selection
A beginner poultry breeder should keep in mind that not every breed of chickens is suitable for a subsidiary farm. Their selection should be made taking into account the conditions of detention. In this case, chickens can be selected simple or thoroughbred. The first of them are less demanding on the conditions of keeping and on the balance of the feed. However, the most interesting for home growing are:
- Meat chickens. They grow very quickly, while gaining weight. Juicy carcasses are obtained from such a bird. However, it should be borne in mind that this bird rushes very badly.
- Egg Quills. These hens are excellent laying hens, all year round delighting their hosts with selected fresh eggs. As a rule, these are small sized light birds that love activity and fly well. Many of these breeds have not yet lost the instinct of hatching chickens.
- Meat and egg. These hens are versatile. On the one hand, they serve as an excellent source of tasty and high-quality meat, and on the other, they do not lag behind in egg laying.
Before buying chickens, you must first select the variety that has a suitable focus. Small farms prefer to grow universal birds. After all, they grow and mature quickly and rush well.
In order for the raising of chickens and the further maintenance of chickens to be simple and profitable, the breeds must meet certain requirements, including:
- Endurance and unpretentiousness. This is especially important when the owners do not have enough free time to practice with a feathered household.
- Good adaptability. Birds will need to take root in a new place. That is why they need to be able to easily rebuild and get used to new living conditions.
- Unpretentiousness in matters of nutrition. When a person is raising chickens at home, he will not be able to calculate the exact dosage of feed for each bird. It is unlikely that in this case there are also opportunities for acquiring unusual food or making a special diet.
- Profitability in content. Surely no one will want to engage in the domestic rearing of chickens, if in the end, after spending money and time, a brood will not bring any benefit.
- Good immunity and good health. This breed factor is important. The fact is that factory chickens are very often literally stuffed with antibiotics. On the one hand, this allows them not to get sick, and on the other, it fills the meat with harmful substances. That is why it is desirable that domestic chickens have an innate resistance to the most common bird diseases.
It is also necessary to know about some nuances of choosing a bird at the stage of buying chickens from an incubator. Attention should be stopped only on the most mobile individuals. Activity always indicates that the chicks are healthy. Otherwise, the money spent on the purchase may not be justified. A weak bird can die already in the first days or after it will be significantly stunted.
What kind of chickens do they buy for rearing? According to the recommendations of specialists, the main sign of the health of small fluffy lumps is their ability:
- stay steady on your feet;
- move well and smartly;
- try to peck around objects.
In addition, chickens should have a taut and at the same time soft stomach, a clean pink cloaca, bulging and shiny eyes, wings always pressed to the body. When choosing, you need to pay attention to the umbilical cord. By the time of purchase, it should already heal.
First days. Care
And raising chickens in the initial period of their stay at home, and caring for them is a very responsible matter. Indeed, in the first weeks of their lives, chicks are especially vulnerable to the most various infections. That is why caring for them should be especially thorough.
In order to create optimal conditions for raising chickens in the first weeks of their life, the necessary temperature regime must be created, high-quality nutrition provided and a sufficient amount of water supplied.
After the chickens hatched in the incubator completely dry, they are placed under a layer or in a prepared box, which can be either cardboard or wooden. The bottom of such a container is covered with newspapers or a piece of cloth folded in several layers, on which a feeder and a drinking bowl are placed. An incandescent lamp is placed above the box on a tripod. Its height is adjusted so that the air temperature at the bottom surface is within 30 degrees. On the first day, a box of chickens is illuminated even at night. After that, daylight hours can be reduced to 8 hours.
How to carry out care and cultivation at the initial stage? Chickens at home should always be provided with food and drink. Dirty newspapers should be cleaned at least 2 times a day. In the case when the chickens begin to pile up, you need to warm the air in the box. In the "heap-mala" chicks gather only when they are cold. But it is not only low temperature that is dangerous to them. In a bunch, the upper individuals can crush the lower ones. Harmful to chickens and heat. You can learn about uncomfortable temperatures by the behavior of chicks who tend to run away from the light, stretch their heads and unfold their wings. Starting from the fifth day of the future carrier’s stay, it will be necessary to reduce the temperature to 26 degrees, then reduce by 3 degrees every week to 18. After it becomes clear that the chickens are cramped in the box, they are transferred to the bedding. This increases the area of their location.
Chick house
In the first days after the purchase of young animals, it can be placed not in a box, but in a brooder. This device is designed to heat young animals in the first weeks of life. At its core, broilers for raising chickens are artificial substitutes for a brood hen. Of course, such a house can be purchased ready-made. However, many poultry farmers still prefer to make a brooder with their own hands for raising chickens.
After the procurement of materials and the necessary equipment, you can safely get to work. At its first stage, the frame of such a house is made of plywood. Its dimensions are determined individually based on the number of chickens. The height of such a structure should not be higher than 50 cm. Otherwise, the poultry breeder will have difficulty heating the young. Due to the lack of heat, the chickens will start to freeze.
The bottom of the brooder is made of fine mesh, the cells of which are 1x1 cm in size. Through such openings, all rubbish will be showered on the bottom pan. Such a design will allow quick and easy cleaning when caring for chicks.
A self-made brooder for raising chickens is equipped with incandescent lamps, whose power is 60 watts. But for heating, it is best to purchase special lighting fixtures. Their cost is low, and the efficiency is much greater than conventional lamps.
Room requirements
After 10 days, the young can be moved to the barn, where a place will be prepared in advance for future hens. According to the recommendations of experts, it will need to constantly maintain cleanliness, which will be an excellent prevention of a wide variety of bird diseases. After all, with a strong crowding of chickens, the presence of numerous food debris and litter in the room, the chicks are unlikely to be able to stay healthy. In addition, the place where the chickens are raised and fed must be constantly heated, and the following rules must be observed:
- carry out high-quality disinfection before placing the birds in the barn;
- maintain the optimal level of humidity in the room within 60 percent;
- place not more than 13 individuals on an area of one square meter;
- to lay on the floor a thick layer of litter of absorbent material without mold, which may be, for example, fresh hay.
When placing a bird in a barn, you must take care of its safety. This is especially true when growing broiler chickens. After all, this breed is considered very shy. In case of danger, such hens immediately pile up in a pile, mutilating each other. Some of the chickens may even die. But in any case, cats and dogs, rats and mice should not enter the barn.
Walking chicks
Starting from the weekly age, the bird can begin to be released into the yard. Fresh air and solar energy will have an excellent effect on the metabolic processes occurring in the body of chickens. In addition, such walks will be a wonderful prevention of rickets.
At first, the duration of the walk should not exceed 90 minutes. And only after the living creature has grown a little, it will be possible to leave it in the open space during the whole daylight hours. To do this, you need to build a small paddock, which will be fenced with a fine mesh. Such material will prevent the bird from escaping and at the same time protect it from predatory animals. It is also worth making a strong canopy over this paddock. In this case, the chickens will not get wet from heavy rain and will not get sick.
Young diet
Any resident of the village can tell in detail how to breed laying hens at home. However, only one of such housewives sells excess eggs all year round, while the second constantly scold their birds, considering them lazy ones.
In order for the costs incurred in the purchase of chicks to fully pay off, in addition to good care for the birds, they will need balanced nutrition from birth. Birds also need water. Small chickens are given twice as much as food. For the first time, for daily babies, 5% glucose solution is poured instead of water.
Until the age of seven days, feed is simply poured onto pieces of cardboard. Next, you need a device feeders, the design of which, ideally, should be suspended.
The first food for fluffy lumps are:
- small crushed groats;
- hard-boiled eggs;
- low-fat dry cottage cheese (it contains calcium, which contributes to plumage).
A little later, the egg is excluded from the diet. From the second day, it is advisable to add finely chopped greens to the chicken feed. In the summer it can be a clover, and in the winter independently sprouted cereals. From the third day, the chickens will be happy to eat a mash. Prepare it on meat broth and yogurt. The stirrer should always be fresh. Within an hour, its remains should be thrown out of the feeder, which should then be washed and rinsed with a solution of potassium permanganate. By the way, a weak, slightly pink water containing this substance should be fed to the chicks twice a week in the morning.
At the age of five days, chickens are already viable. They will need to gradually increase the amount of feed, adding fish oil and vitamins to it. From the first day, coarse sand or fine gravel is recommended for their stomachs, which can be replaced by eggshells. Up to two months of age, only crushed cereals can be given to young birds from cereals.
Chicken Feeding
For adult birds you will need to purchase feed. Its ideal composition is that which contains:
- 40% of corn;
- 8% wheat bran;
- 20% barley flour;
- 10% sunflower meal;
- 14% of fish and meat and bone meal (1: 1);
- 3% feed yeast;
- 5% sodium chloride and mineral supplements.
A similar mixture, either dry or as a mash, is given 2-3 times during the day. In order for the chickens stomach to work well, they should be fed with dry grain, on which it is desirable that there are fewer films.
It is known that homemade eggs always differ from factory ones. This is made possible by the variety of feed. The yolk acquires its orange color due to the presence of a large amount of vitamin green in the feeding of layers.
Leftovers from the person’s table can be added to the food of chickens, which diversify the menu of birds. Experts say that the more ingredients there are in the feed, the tastier the egg will be.
But those who keep chickens should keep in mind that they can not be overfed. Poor nutrition leads to obesity of the viscera. It will be difficult for the bird to rush. Her eggs instead of shells will begin to be covered with a very thin film. This will cause the contents of this product to spill directly under the chicken. Such a circumstance will have its negative impact, not only because the eggs begin to contaminate the nests. The taste of their contents will become known to chickens, which in the future is fraught with biting.
The golden age of the layers lasts up to 15 months. After that, they give less eggs, and their meat begins to harden. By this time, the owners should prepare a new brood.
Chicken Broilers
How to ensure that a bird of this breed lives up to its purpose? To do this, she will need competent care. And broiler chickens need to be raised with a carefully selected diet.
If a bird of this breed will not be further used for procreation, then its stay at home lasts no more than 70 days. After that, raising and caring for and feeding broiler chickens will not bring any benefits to the owners. Physiologically, in birds older than 70 days, weight gain begins to fall. At the same time, feed consumption remains at the same level. Comparing these two factors, it becomes obvious that broiler chickens growing at home more than this period is not at all profitable. This must be considered when choosing this breed.
Broiler Chicken Feeding
What are the features of the content of this meat poultry? The conditions for growing broiler chickens in the first stage do not differ from those recommended for young animals of other breeds. But for such birds this is not enough. It is important for them to get the proper amount of feed. Only in this case the bird will be large and well-fed.
How to feed and grow broiler chickens, it is especially important for those who first brought this meat breed to their household. During the first weeks of life, the chicks should be fed with wet mashrooms. They are prepared using millet and boiled eggs, crushed oats, and also wheat, which should be a little more than half of the fodder intended for poultry.
After the chickens turn 3 weeks old, boiled potatoes are introduced into their menu, which replaces a fifth of the cereal. When growing broilers, do not forget about protein feed. They will allow you to lay the active growth of bone and muscle mass. For this, the bird must eat curdled milk and cottage cheese, skim milk and other dairy products.
Starting from 10 days of age, animal protein, which is found in meat and bone and fish meal, should appear in the diet of chickens. Such products first give 5-7 grams per day for one individual. A little later, flour consumption can be doubled.
In the diet of broiler chickens, vegetable products that are rich in protein should also be present. These are crushed seeds of legumes, oilcake sunflower seeds, various kinds of meal.
From the age of three days, broilers should receive green feed. In the spring and summer, this is the tops of crops growing in the garden, succulent grass and chopped carrots. 3-5 grams of greens per individual. In cold periods, the presence of herbal flour is necessary in the diet. It is added to the feed at the rate of 2-5 grams per individual. As greenery can be used seedlings of cereal crops.
In order to prevent digestion problems, broilers should receive:
- pink potassium permanganate solution as a drink (every other day);
- fine gravel, the diameter of which does not exceed 5 mm, to activate the intestines and improve digestion.
From the fifth day of life, chicken broilers begin to give a crushed shell (2-3 grams per one chick).
The use of animal feed
In order for broilers to gain weight more intensively, experts recommend giving them such food that would fully meet the physiological needs of the birds. Today it is ready-made or home-made compound feed. Such a diet allows you to get particularly good results in the first four weeks of the life of birds.
Combined feeds significantly improve the weight of the growing livestock and greatly simplify the care of broilers, their feeding and rearing, as well as control over food consumption. At the initial stage, this will strengthen the immunity of the bird and create all the prerequisites for its rapid weight gain and good health. During active growth, compound feeds are a complete source of calcium and proteins, fats and vitamins, which provide muscle growth. At the end of the period of detention, before slaughter, it is recommended to use finishing mixtures, which contribute to increasing fatness.