Today, many people want to breed hens, and not just for profit. Nowadays, it is especially important to pay attention to high-quality natural products. Sometimes they can only be obtained in the household. The maintenance of laying hens allows year-round to provide themselves and their family with tasty and healthy products. However, in order to get a sufficient number of eggs, the birds need to provide appropriate care. In this article, we will consider the recommendations of experienced farmers on keeping hens at home.
Conditions
So what do you need to know first? The content of laying hens is associated with the fulfillment of a number of requirements. They relate to the conditions of birds in the equipped room and diet. Consider the requirements in more detail.
What room is better to adapt to the cage of laying hens at home? For this purpose, farm buildings such as a barn or special chicken coops are suitable. It is important to ensure that the room provides good thermal insulation, protection from moisture, drafts and pests. If you plan to keep birds on the floor, then you need to choose the size of the building so that they allow you to grow the maximum possible livestock. It is also worth remembering that young and adult poultry should live in different rooms. This requirement is due to the hygienic features of keeping chickens at home.
It should be possible for birds to move seamlessly, even during the cold season. Unlike meat breeds, laying hens need free grazing and regular walks. Otherwise, egg production will suffer. For this reason, the maintenance of laying hens at home must necessarily include a fenced walking area. Each bird should have approximately 1 square meter of area. Ash baths can be marked within the enclosure. This will have a positive effect on hen hygiene. As for the optimum temperature for keeping chickens, experts usually talk about values from 22 to 25 degrees.
With these values, productivity indicators will remain at a high level. If the temperature drops by more than 10 degrees, the results of egg laying can be significantly reduced. To prevent this, experts recommend creating artificial heating. Do not do high ceilings in the room, as this can adversely affect the temperature regime. A height of about 1.8 meters will be optimal. Also, laying hens require additional lighting. Without this factor, they will not demonstrate high productivity. If in summer sunlight is usually enough, then in winter it is better to organize additional sources of lighting. The daylight hours in the chicken coop should be at least 14 hours.
How should laying hens be nursed? Maintenance and care at home should include the equipment of a sufficient number of nests. After all, laying hens lay their eggs almost every day. For every 10 chickens there should be 4 nests. It is best to place them in secluded places. Be sure to pay attention to their contents. It is best if they are deep boxes filled with bedding material, such as sawdust, straw or hay. Chickens should sleep in places specially designed for this purpose, which are located at a distance of 1 meter from the floor. When calculating the size of poles, it is imperative to take into account the fact that 20 cm is allocated for each place. The distance with a staircase should be at least 35 cm.
Care Features
This issue should be addressed in more detail.
The conditions for laying hens in cages are based on three basic principles:
- regular disinfection;
- a varied diet;
- good hygiene.
Additionally, you will have to take care of cleaning the house and changing the litter daily. If this requirement is not observed, the risk of the formation of insect pests and pathogenic microorganisms is high. Feeders and water tanks must be kept clean. They must be washed after each use of wet food. Water in drinking bowls needs to be changed regularly. Experienced farmers annually carry out a full cleaning of the chicken coop, however, this can not be done in winter. For this purpose, all rubbish should be removed from the premises, the walls should be covered with lime, and basic household items should be disinfected.
While these manipulations are carried out, the hens must be transferred to another room. You need to prepare it in advance. If we talk about disinfectants, it is best to use a simple blowtorch or ready-made special preparations. Chickens require ash baths. Treatment should also be regularly carried out against parasites. If sick individuals are identified, they must be immediately quarantined. Try to organize chickens of different ages separate content. The same rule applies to young growth. Eggs that were recently purchased must be quarantined.
Proper nutrition
How to make a diet? What should laying hens eat? Maintenance and care at home necessarily include the development of a menu. A varied diet is crucial for egg breeds. By producing eggs, the chicken body spends a huge amount of nutrients and minerals. Therefore, in addition to classic crops, vegetables and animal feed, they also need protein foods. As such products can be used meat and bone meal and fish meal, oilcake, dairy products and meal. The role of the source of fats in the feed for laying hens is played by oats and corn.
How to care for laying hens in winter?
In the cold months, laying hens need free walking no less than in the summer. At temperatures above 12 degrees below zero, chickens must be outdoors for some time. To maintain egg production at the same level, you need to arrange the lighting system so that the daylight hours are at least 14 hours.
Watch out for temperature conditions. To prevent the air from being too dry or humid, you must first ensure proper ventilation in the house. Also do not forget to insulate the floor and ceiling of the chicken coop. The maintenance of laying hens in winter provides for the regular addition of dry leaves and hay. It is unlikely that they will be able to find greenery under the snow.
Chicken Breeding Rules
Many novice farmers are interested in how to properly maintain hens. How to provide birds with the necessary care? In this case, just follow the simple rules. First, observe the ratio of individuals by gender. There should be five females per rooster. Experienced farmers, given the weak instinct of chickens to incubate, recommend getting an incubator. It is best to take chicken eggs for incubation, whose age is 1-2 years.
Growing Features
What does it include? Egg-growing chickens has its own characteristics. They are quite active, but develop very slowly. Particular attention should be paid to the composition of the diet. It must definitely include nutritional and mineral components. Young animals should have free walking opportunities.
Bird Care: Basic Tips
Keeping hens at home in winter requires a number of conditions. Today, birds are one of the most common types of domestic animals. Chicken completely domesticated, but at the same time retained their unpretentiousness and fecundity. This is precisely the reason for the use of these birds in almost every household. With the proper organization of the functioning of the poultry farm, a healthy chicken is able to bring on average two eggs with an amplitude of three days. To facilitate this process, it is worth equipping a convenient chicken coop. For a normal life, birds need the following components: a house, a balanced diet, regular walking, observing light and temperature conditions, and ensuring sanitary standards.
Where should laying hens live? Conditions of detention require a separate room. Any building materials can be used to build a bird house. However, it is better to give preference to natural. The construction should be well ventilated, thermally insulated and spacious. It is also necessary to provide for the installation of lighting devices in the house. Nevertheless, natural light cannot be ignored. For the climatic conditions of Siberia and the Urals, the best option is a polycarbonate house.
The conditions for keeping hens in winter should not differ much. In any weather, the courtyard in the chicken coop should be warm and dry. This will contribute to the fact that the females even in the cold season can regularly rush. If you keep chickens on the floor, then there should be no more than 3-4 individuals per square meter. It is necessary to lay straw, hay, sawdust on a hard floor. Thus, you can provide good thermal insulation, but at the same time bring the habitat closer to the natural one for hens. This will allow them to exercise their natural instincts even better.
Perches need to be organized in such a way that the birds can settle on them not too closely. Their height should begin with 0.6 meters. If you decide to equip such places, then for the convenience of processing and collecting eggs, it is better to place them above a designated level. Also, crossings should be equipped with intermediate facilities. So it will be easier for layers to reach the place of spending the night. The laying of chickens will depend on how cozy and comfortable the nests are. Despite the age categories of birds, everything must be ready before they are populated. This will help the layers to get used to the presence of nests.
The number of nests and perches, of course, will depend on the number of individuals. It is worth thinking in advance about the organization of a spacious corral. This will allow household animals to receive a sufficient amount of sunlight. A ventilated open-air cage can be created from a mesh netting. The fence is better to make higher with a top coating. So the birds will not be able to leave the territory and at the same time will be protected from the heat in hot weather and rain. The most convenient solution in this case is the combined corral and chicken coop sectors. In such a system, the freedom of movement of birds will not be limited. An adjacent system allows creatures to spend maximum time in the sun on warm days. Keeping layers in winter changes this routine a little. However, the organization of self-walking should not be completely abolished. Try to ventilate the chicken house if necessary, as well as timely repair.
Bird habitat
If you are interested in the maintenance and care of laying hens, then a mandatory point should be to consider the natural habitat of birds. There are no serious requirements for the formation of a diet for various species, however, a number of recommendations should be followed.
Cellular maintenance of laying hens may include feeding from the host table. For this purpose, meat and fish products can be used. However, the use of special feed is considered more preferable. Compound feed surrogates are designed by professional ornithologists. This food contains a wide range of vitamins and minerals necessary for a healthy life and the proper development of roosters and hens.
Stern
Ready-made nutrition kits are easy to use. It is simply impossible to feed them a bird. After all, the main threat to laying hens is obesity. From overeating, the chicken may lose egg production. For this reason, the content of laying hens must necessarily include a diet. Properly selected food is a guarantee of obtaining large and high-quality eggs. It is the diet that helps realize the full potential of a living being.
Wet food deserves special attention. This category also includes mixers designed for self-cooking. Typically, such a set includes cereals, hay flour, bagasse, chopped vegetables and meal, whole grain cereals, wheat bran, chopped boiled potatoes. The chicken drinker should be simple and convenient. A shallow wide tank is best suited for this purpose. A drinking bowl can be used simultaneously by several individuals.
Conclusion
Many beginning farmers are worried about how to do poultry farming properly. Which is better, laying hens in cages or in a chicken coop? What conditions need to be created for laying hens? How to choose the right food?
The maintenance of laying hens at home necessarily includes compliance with sanitary standards. The place where the chicken is kept should be cleaned regularly. Also monitor the condition of the litter on the walking platform. It is necessary to change it as often as possible. Dirty floors and nests can cause dangerous infections. Be sure to keep the bowls and drinkers clean.
What else does the laying hen keep? Allow the birds a place for walking and create comfortable conditions for them to live. Experienced farmers recommend laying hens in the same room with cattle. This will be especially beneficial for the owner, since in this case it is not necessary to allocate money for the construction of the chicken coop, and moreover, large animals emit a large amount of heat. If the crib is well insulated, it can not be heated additionally. The main thing is to properly equip perches, nests and create an artificial lighting system. For the maintenance of a small number of birds this will be enough. Do not be afraid to breed chickens. Thanks to this, you can provide your family with delicious, dietary, and most importantly healthy meat.