How to Care for Chickens: A Beginners guide
How well you care for the hens is one of the factors that will ensure the prosperous expansion of your poultry farming enterprise.
Taking good care of your hens is crucial if you raise poultry for a living in order to ensure their healthy growth.
Because they are such delicate creatures, chickens need only the most minimal care.
This article outlines several fundamental practices that chicken farmers should adhere to in order to guarantee the healthy growth of their flocks.
How to take care of chickens daily
- 1. Refill the chicken feed
For vitality and growth, chickens require an adequate diet, just like other animals such as goats, pigs, and rabbits.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that hens enjoy pecking at their food nonstop throughout the day.
You must replenish your hens’ food as part of your daily care duties.
The feeder may vary based on the kind of poultry system you run.
The feeder in a battery cage system of chicken farming is fastened to the cage’s sidewalls.
Large hanging feeders are used by chicken producers in their deep litter farming approach.
Pour the grain into the feeding trough and spread it evenly to replenish the chicken feeders in battery cages.
To prevent food spills when the chickens peck at it, do not fill the feeder too full.
Fill each hanging feeder three quarters (¾) full in the case of the deep litter system used in poultry husbandry.
2. Fill the water after cleaning and checking for dirt.
Your hens need water, so make sure they have access to clean, fresh water at all times.
Chickens dislike drinking contaminated water, and even a brief period of time without a clean drinking source might cause them to become dehydrated.
Due of the possibility of shavings, straw, and excrement getting into the water, you must replace their water every day.
When this occurs, the water becomes contaminated and unsafe to drink.
Additionally, if you see any debris or sliminess in the container, you should replace the water.
For routine cleanings, use dish soap and water; make sure to rinse well before adding more.
As long as you rinse it well, you can also sterilize the water container using oxygen or chlorine bleach.
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3. Check the health of the hens by keeping an eye on them.
Spend as much time as you can with the flock.
Make sure the hens are healthy by giving them daily attention.
Smooth-feathered hens with bright eyes and lively, alert behavior are a positive indicator.
A sick bird will close its eyes and be largely motionless.
In order to stop the spread of viral chicken infections, separate your inactive birds as soon as you notice them.
4. Every day, gather eggs from the chicken farm.
This ought to be a regular duty if you run a layers poultry farm.
Make sure you take every egg from your farm when you arrive in the morning.
Because the eggs in a battery cage system slide out to the egg rack, picking the eggs is simpler.
When selecting the eggs, exercise extreme caution if you’re using the deep litter system.
This is due to the fact that the hens will typically lay their eggs in the nests you build for them or in the pen’s corners.
Eggs are kept as clean as possible when they are collected every day.
Moreover, it reduces cracked eggs and increases fresh
Monthly tasks for caring for chickens
To take care of your hens, you must perform certain duties every day, but you can also complete some on a monthly basis.
1, Take care of the bedding.
Litter management is a duty you should not ignore if you utilize beddings in your poultry house.
Depending on the litter technique you’re using, here’s how to accomplish it.
If your flock is small, you should usually replace the bedding in the coop once a month at the latest.
Larger flocks, however, can employ the deep litter approach.
Start with three to four inches of bedding for this procedure.
Add extra bedding every month (or whenever droppings accumulate) until you have at least 6 inches.
Then, start over twice a year after removing all of the bedding.
Additionally, since chicken litter is high in nitrogen, you may compost it and utilize it in your garden.
2. Give the nest boxes a scrub.
The hens, especially the layers, go to the nest box to lay their eggs.
When the nest box’s bedding gets soiled from droppings or cracked eggs, remove the soiled sections and replace them with clean bedding.
This makes cleaning eggs easier and helps to keep your hens laying in the nest boxes.
3. Clean the waterers for the chickens once a month.
You should at least once each month provide the
water bottles a thorough cleaning.
Use a solution of your choice to sanitize them; the easiest ratio is one part bleach to ten parts water.
After using dish soap and warm water to scrub the waterers, make sure to rinse well to get rid of any leftover soap and bleach before adding fresh water.
In summary
As a poultry farmer, you have an obligation to take good care of your birds due to their vitality.
The hens need to be fed, cleaned, and have their water filled on a regular basis.
By doing this, you provide the hens with a joyful environment in which to grow and develop.
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