One of the most profitable businesses in agriculture can be called poultry farming. Poultry is fairly easy to maintain, especially in the countryside. In addition to meat, they give their owners such a tasty and healthy product as eggs.
Previously, many housewives also used poultry fluff, stuffing pillows, feather-beds and blankets for them. Later, down jackets and baby overalls began to sew . Some even used a feather, cutting off a soft pile from a thick feather spine.
But today, the pen has almost gone out of use. Synthetic analogues have successfully replaced this material: they are less allergenic, they are easier to wash, they have less weight and are not very expensive.
Most rural residents prefer to buy young poultry at poultry farms - both day-old chicks, goslings, turkey poults, ducklings, and monthly or two-month-old young ones. They believe that breeding birds at home is a painstaking affair, which takes a lot of time and effort.
Yes, and there is a serious risk. An incubator - he is an incubator: will it suddenly break or will the light turn off? Much easier to assign this work to specialists.
However, practice proves that the effort and time spent on breeding and developing birds at home with an incubator then pays off with interest. This is especially true for those who decided to closely engage in the withdrawal of birds by artificial means.
Of course, in order for the business to generate sufficient income, you need to know how birds breed. Given all the nuances, you can avoid losses and failures in the withdrawal. For example, if we compare how waterfowl and chickens reproduce, the conclusion suggests itself: duck and goose eggs require a higher temperature during the incubation period and greater humidity.
However, it is perfectly acceptable to "let" ducklings along with the chickens, if necessary, under the clutch. Only this must be done carefully, best at night, when their babies begin to hatch in the flocks.
But knowing how birds of other species breed, for example, turkeys and chickens, it is quite possible to combine their eggs in an incubator.
By the way, many poultry farmers lay chicken eggs under turkeys, noting that turkey mothers are more caring and attentive to their brood. Yes, and this bird can bring young animals much more than a hen-hen.
There is such an experience when the chicken removes ducklings, and the duck, on the contrary, chickens. But in this process there are more failures, because, as mentioned above, the incubation time and temperature required for the development of the embryo are different for these birds.
Experienced poultry farmers also made a wonderful discovery: you can make a couch sit on eggs, in addition to her will! It will be more accurate to say differently: you can make the chicken "want" to turn into a brood hen. How? And very simple!
The poultry breeder selects a healthy young chicken and puts it in a cage from the rest of the bird. On the first day, they give her balls rolled from “live” yeast together with grain feed two to three times. It is also good to give the future brood hen leaven, provided that it is not peroxidized.
Then, for 10 days, the chicken should be fed with live protein feed. Great for earthworms, which are easy to type during planting potatoes or preparing beds for garden crops. Just need to get ready to do the land work, always carry dishes with a lid for collecting worms.
Still need to monitor the constant presence of an isolated bird of clean water. You can also offer her additional protein feed: soaked peas, beans, corn, boiled egg, chopped boiled meat. A small amount of grated carrots will not hurt - this is a good vitamin supplement. Pebbles, egg shells and chalk are the essential ingredients that make up the chicken menu.
After 10 days, the chicken can be released into the general flock, but you just need to carefully monitor where it will lay its eggs so that its laying does not get lost.
For the purity of the experiment, you can select a special aviary for the future mother, where she can run a cockerel. And then you can be completely calm: in two weeks, the chicken will arrange the clutch and sit down to incubate the chickens.
Many poultry farmers today, having studied how birds of exotic species breed , also began to engage in the business of raising ostriches. This occupation is really profitable! Just one egg of such a bird weighs almost two kilograms! I made an omelet from three of these eggs - and feed even a whole company of soldiers!
And from the shell of ostrich eggs they make a lot of interesting things: lampshades on lamps, vases, candy cans, salad bowls. What can we say about meat, which can also be obtained from ostriches.
No one, of course, forces everyone to engage in poultry farming everywhere. But if suddenly someone comes up with such a thought, I really want to wish him great success in this field!