Nowadays, broiler farming has become quite profitable. There are a lot of breeds of these meat hybrid chickens. And the most popular of these is the English breed of Cornish chickens and the Plymouth breed, bred in the United States. Less often bred broilers of such breeds as armor, Kuchin, anniversary, New Hampshire and May Day. But Russian breeders have now also succeeded in this matter. Through their efforts, new and cheaper crosses of chickens appear, which are also better adapted to local conditions. An example is the Russian breed Baros-123, which is in no way inferior to Western "colleagues."
You can, of course, try to bring out your own cross of such hens, but this will require a lot of labor and time. And therefore, now poultry farmers are buying breeding chickens of daily age at poultry farms or from their more experienced colleagues. And then broiler growing can be done in several ways. But the most convenient and affordable are two of them. And the first way is to grow broiler chickens on a deep litter. And in private households, in which there is a supply of necessary feed, in this way chickens can be grown all year round.
To do this, first of all, you need a dry and warm house. It should also have good ventilation. The ceiling and walls in this room must be plastered and whitewashed. There are special requirements for floors in the house. They should have low thermal conductivity, be waterproof and inaccessible to the teeth of rodents.
Before purchasing a new batch of chickens, the house needs to be disinfected. To do this, the floors in it are sprinkled with lime-cannon, and then the litter is already laid. And so that broiler chickens, the cultivation of which should bring a good income, grow healthy, this litter must always be in a loose and dry state. Its thickness in the summer should be within 5-10 centimeters, and in other seasons of the year - 15-20 centimeters. A sufficiently deep litter will well absorb harmful gases and moisture, it will also serve as a layer of thermal insulation and will generally improve the sanitary condition of the entire room.
Growing broilers requires special attention to the selection of materials for this litter. Here you can use wood shavings and sawdust, fiber peat, sunflower husk or crushed sticks left over from the corn cobs. This material must be well dried. Therefore, it is desirable to prepare it in the summer, in the hottest months, and with such a reserve that it is enough for the whole year. Because the use of raw, moldy, frozen and contaminated litter can affect broiler health.
And when buying day-old chickens, you should also pay attention to their condition. To grow broilers for maximum results, these chickens must be healthy. This can be determined by their stomach. In a healthy chicken, it is selected, mobile and soft with a protracted umbilical cord. The fluff of such a “baby” is smooth, shiny and snug against the body. You can determine the degree of health of a daily chicken by its live weight. It should be about 40 grams.
In order for the chickens to grow well, there should be twilight in the house. At the same time, the daylight hours for them should be at least 17 hours. Depending on the area of the premises, the number of chickens is also selected. Up to 10-15 animals can be raised per square meter. And if the chicken house is equipped with good ventilation, then this population can be increased to 14-18. The temperature in the chicken coop also affects the growth of its "residents". If it is too low, then the growth of the chickens will be delayed, they will begin to curl, become inactive, and weaker individuals will simply die. This chicken coop can be heated with ordinary household electrical appliances, such as reflectors, heating pads and the like. The ventilation of the room also needs to be approached with all seriousness. It should be made so that there is no strong wave of cold and no drafts.
And to make full-fledged broilers from chickens, the cultivation of which is the ultimate goal of this whole venture, they need to be well fed. During the first four days, it is advisable for them to feed hard-boiled eggs, waste from dairy processing and low-fat cottage cheese. You can also add young corn and wheat, oilcake, steamed peas, meat and bone meal or fish meal , as well as table and food waste to these feeds. Milk powder and animal fats will also be beneficial for broilers. And in the summer they should be fed green feed containing vitamins. We should not forget about water, as broilers drink a lot and often. And with proper cultivation, after 56 days, broilers reach about 1.5 kilograms of live weight. This age is optimal in order to slaughter them for meat. You can hold them a little longer, up to 80 days of age. It makes no sense to feed broilers more, since their growth rate then decreases.