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Efficient Poultry Production: The Role of Management Practices
Maximum production with minimum stress to the birds and the environment is the major concern. In maximizing performance nutrition plays a vital role. Raw materials vary on their nutritive value from time-to-time, source-to-source and batch-to-batch. It is a very important to assess nutritive value exactly each time to ensure the feed being manufactured is of the desired quality. It is necessary to consider digestible amino acids whilst formulating the feed to ensure optimum performance. Formulations based on digestible amino acids will deliver improved results. Various micro ingredients are being employed in poultry feed production in terms of additives/ supplements to make up the deficiency (vitamins, trace minerals etc.); to maximize the performance (Antibiotic growth promoters, Lysophospholipids etc.) or to combat the disease challenges (Anticoccidials, Antibiotics etc.). Points to be considered for enhancing productivity include:
1. Quality chicks
If the enterprise is to be successful it is necessary to use stock known to be of good quality and of the appropriate genotype for the commodity to be produced in the management situation to be used. Choose the strain that will perform best and is known to have good livability under reasonable environmental conditions. Good chicks may cost more but they will perform better and pay more too.
2. Improved housing and adequate space
There should be ample fresh air, free from drafts. Air must be circulating. High levels of non-desirable gases decrease growth rate and increase flock's susceptibility to respiratory disease. A well managed litter helps the birds in putting on feathers and improves feed conversion. It also reduces coccidiosis problem.
High and low temperature, high humidity in some circumstances, excessively strong wind, inadequate ventilation and/or air movement and high levels of harmful air pollutants such as ammonia are examples of an adverse environment. The design of poultry houses should permit the regulation of the house environment. This will require a good knowledge of the different factors that constitute the environment and how they interact with each other to produce the actual conditions in the house and, more importantly, what can be done to improve the house environment.
Overcrowding increases mortality, stress, as well as production cost.
3. Balanced feed
Always ensure adequate fresh feed. Birds that are without feed for six hours will record a drop in production and a 12 hour starvation will result in moult of wing feathers. There should be adequate feeder space for the birds. Guard against feed wastage. Maintain records of daily feed consumption. It will enable to determine feed utilization and bird's performance. Diets may be formulated for each class of stock under various conditions of management, environment and production level.
Maximizing production is not necessarily the most profitable strategy to use because the additional cost required providing the diet that will give maximum production might be greater than the value of the increase in production gained. A lower quality diet, while resulting in lower production may bring in greatest profit because of the significantly lower feed costs. The following are key aspects in relation to the provision of a quality diet:
- The ingredients from which the diet is made must be of good quality.
- The weighing or measuring of all ingredients must be accurate.
- All of the specified ingredients must be included. If one e.g. a grain is unavailable, the diet should be re-formulated.
- The micro-ingredients such as the amino acids, vitamins and other similar materials should be stored in cool storage - many such ingredients lose their potency over time, and particularly so in high temperatures.
- Do not use moldy ingredients - these should be discarded.
4. Watering
Provide ample amount of clean potable water. Water restriction is a quick way to accidentally force the flock to moult. Ensure that the waterers are easily accessible to birds with sufficient waterer space for each bird.
5. Lighting
The duration of light should be adjusted as per the recommendations of the breeders. A decreasing day length can prematurely cause hens to go out to production.
6. The maximum use of management techniques
There are available for use by farm manager a number of different management techniques that, while not essential for the welfare of the stock, do result in better performance. Examples of these are the regulation of day length, the management of live weight for age and of flock uniformity. The good manager will utilize these techniques whenever possible to maximize production efficiency and hence profitability.
Vaccination- Ensure that all birds are vaccinated for infectious diseases prevalent in that area.
Debeaking Follow correct debeaking programme. Poor debeaking can adversely affect egg
production.
Culling- Unsuitable and uneconomic birds should be timely culled.
7. Health
Watch for early signs of disease for its timely treatment before it flares up in a big way. Some of the symptoms that indicate the onset of disease problems are:
- Drop in egg production and feed consumption
- Increased morbidity and mortality
- Inactivity and lack of vigour
- Droopy ruffled appearance and respiratory distress
- Look for any sudden change in egg quality
The maintenance of good health
The presence of disease in the poultry flock is reflected in inferior performance. There are three elements of good health management of a poultry flock. These are:
The prevention of disease is a much more economical way of health management than waiting for the flock to become diseased before taking appropriate action. There are a number of factors that are significant in disease prevention. These are:
Prevention of diseases
- Application of a stringent quarantine program
- The use of good hygiene practices
- Maintaining the flock in a good state of well being by good stockmanship, nutrition and housing.
- The use of a suitable vaccination program.
- The use of a preventive medication program.
- The use of monitoring procedures to keep a check on the disease organism status of the farm, to check on the effectiveness of cleaning and sanitation procedures and to test the immunity levels to certain diseases in the stock to check the effectiveness of the vaccination program.
The early recognition of disease
One of the first skills that should be learned by the poultry flock manager is to be able to tell when all is not well with the stock.
The early treatment of disease
If a disease should infect a flock, early treatment may mean the difference between a mild outbreak and a more serious one. It is important that the correct treatment be used as soon as possible.
8. Efficient records keeping
A daily record of feed consumption, egg production, mortality, income and expenditure is essential to help improve farming efficiency and pinpoint troubles and their solutions. There are two types of records that need be kept on a poultry enterprise:
- Those required for financial management-for business and taxation reasons
- Those required for the efficient physical management of the enterprise
For records to be of use in the management of the enterprise, they must be complete, current and accurate, be analyzed and then used in the decision making process. Failure to use those means that all of the effort to gather the information will have been wasted and performance not monitored. As a result many problems that could have been fixed before they cause irreparable harm may not be identified until too late.
9. Routine checking
Critical items of management should be listed on a daily, weekly or seasonal check list. Every item must be checked. It helps to locate the cause of trouble when it occurs. Routine checks are: Cleaning and refilling of waterers and feeders, cleaning the house and spraying insecticide, stirring the litter, dusting, culling of birds and egg collection, etc.
10. Marketing
There are three important elements to good marketing practice:
- Produce the commodity required by the consumer - this usually means continuous market research must be carried out to relate production to demand.
- Be competitive - higher price is usually associated with good quality and/or specialized product. Therefore, it is necessary to relate price to quality and market demand and to operate in a competitive manner with the opposition.
- Reliability - produce a commodity for the market and ensure that supply, price and quality are reliable.
By: -
Dr. Satish J. Manwar (Associate Professor & Head)
Department of Poultry Science, Post Graduate Institute of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, Akola PKV Campus, Krishinagar–444104 Maharashtra