Poultry management usually refers to the husbandry practices or production techniques that help to maximize the efficiency of production. Sound management practices are very essential to optimize production. Scientific poultry management aims at maximizing returns with minimum investment. A carefully controlled environment that avoids crowding, chilling, overheating, or frightening is almost universal in poultry farming. Cannibalism, which expresses itself as toe picking, feather picking, and tail picking, is controlled by debeaking at one day of age and by other management practices. The feeding, watering, egg gathering, and cleaning operations are highly mechanized. Birds are usually housed in wire cages with two or three animals per cage, depending on the species and breed, and three or four tiers of cages superposed to save space. Cages for egg-laying birds have been found to increase production, lower mortality, reduce cannibalism, lower feeding requirements, reduce diseases and parasites, improve culling, and reduce both space and labour requirements.
Drinking behavior in poultry develops within the first couple days of life. When an open water source is provided, birds stick their beak roughly 10 mm into the water, use a scooping motion to collect water in their beak, extend...
Dr. Christiane Keppler, Landesbetrieb Landwirtschaft Hessen (LLH - Hesse State Framing Authority)
As in previous years, poultry farmers are currently facing a number of challenges. These include, in particular, a further...
Mobile slaughtering and direct farm sales –in Hall 26 – Lectures from science and industry – EuroTier 2024: 12 to 15 November in Hanover, Germany– World's leading trade fair for animal farming and livestock management – More than 2,100 registered exhibitors from 52...
Zeshan Zulfiqar*, Muhammad Khalid Bashir, Shahid Ur Rehman, Umar Farooq, Muhammad Farooq Khalid, Muhammad Arslan, Rahat Mobeen Department of Poultry Science, UAF Sub-campus Toba Tek Singh, Pakistan Institute of Animal and Dairy Sciences, Faculty of Animal Husbandry, University of Agriculture Faisalabad Abstract Food security is defined as “Ensuring that all members of a household has adequate diet in access for normal life”. Both of its elements e.g. food...
Suresh Chitturi (Managing Director, Srinivasa Farms) comments on India’s main strengths, consumer trends, and the evolution of poultry operations in the country, during this Engormix interview....
Poultry growers are invited to attend the 2025 International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE) for a special onsite registration fee of only $5, offering a fantastic savings of $130! This program is open to U.S. residents only.
“We highly...
In a negative pressure-ventilated poultry house, the amount of air entering through each side wall inlet depends primarily on the level of negative pressure generated by the house exhaust fans, the size of the inlet opening, and the air inlet design. The higher the static pressure, the faster the air will enter the house and...
It is well known that the higher the static pressure, the faster the air will enter through an air inlet and therefore the greater the amount of air which will enter through the inlet. But how precisely does velocity change with pressure and similarly how does the amount of air entering through an inlet change with static pressure? To answer these questions, the performance of typical 44" X 7" (42.75" X 5.75" actual opening) and 44" X 14" (42" X 10.75" actual opening) galvanized door inlets...
When building a new house or retrofitting an older one, tunnel fan selection is one of the most, if not the most important decision a producer has to make. A house’s fans are essentially the engine of the ventilation system and as a result have a significant effect on a producer’s ability to maintain the proper environmental conditions throughout the year. Furthermore, with rising electricity prices, selecting the right energy-efficient fan can save a producer thousands of...
Though it may not seem like it, each one-foot section of a five-foot-tall, six-inch pad has a tremendous surface area... well over 300 square feet. As a result, a house with two 70' X 5' evaporative pad systems has over 42,000 square feet of pad surface area from which water can evaporate and cool the incoming air. When we look at a 70' X 5' pad system, we can only see the 350 square feet of surface area, not the over 21,000 square feet of (60 times) interior pad surface...
A 54" tunnel fan with a 1.5-hp motor is running and consuming 1,700 watts of power. The belt suddenly breaks and the fan blades stop rotating, but the motor continues to spin. How much power do you believe the motor is now consuming? 1,700 watts? It is important to understand that the primary factor determining how much power a fan will use is how fast the motor is spinning the prop. The faster the prop spins, the greater the amount of work required, and the greater the amount of power used...
1. Introduction The laying hen industry in the United States consists of approximately 330–340 million laying hens [1] that must first go through the growing phase known as the pullet phase. The pullet phase accounts for approximately 25% of a laying hen’s lifetime [2] and encompasses approximately 0–16 weeks of age (WOA). During this time, the pullet reaches sexual maturity and grows to its full skeletal capacity. Early experiences during the pullet phase,...
John Boney (Penn State University) comments on nutrient segregation, feed quality, pellet degradation, and on-farm feed sampling methods, in this Engormix interview....
A poultry house controller's temperature sensors are, in a sense, its "eyes" enabling it to “observe” what is happening throughout a poultry house so it can accurately determine what equipment it needs to operate to maintain the proper environmental conditions throughout a house. As a result, a...
When designing a tunnel-ventilated house, it is important to install the proper amount of evaporative cooling pad. Too little pad will result in excessive static pressure, which will reduce air speed, and therefore bird cooling. Too much pad will result in increased initial cost, more pads to maintain/replace, and a larger area of reduced air movement near the tunnel inlet end wall. Pad area is based not on the size of a house but rather on the air-moving capacity of a house's...
Using evaporative cooling to keep birds cool during hot weather is relatively simple. Water is circulated over paper pads. Tunnel fans pull hot outside air through the pads and into the house. As the air moves through the wetted pads, its temperature decreases. Fairly straightforward. On the other hand, understanding how evaporative...
DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEM A principal goal of nutritionists is to provide birds with a balanced diet that maximizes production at the least cost. Meat bird performance is maximized when feeding pelleted diets (Patton et al., 1937; Hussar and Robblee, 1962; Jensen et al., 1962). However, the nutritional value of feed presented to birds in feed pans throughout the house may not align with diet formulation due to mixer uniformity, feed line length, pellet degradation, and subsequent...
1. Introduction Ensuring efficient chicken farming is crucial, including prioritizing their welfare and health in agricultural production [1]. Individual variability in behavior enhances our understanding of how housing can be utilized differently by chickens. This may be due to individual preferences for certain types of equipment or impediments to access caused by dominant individuals [2]. This variability underscores the importance of improving accurate identification systems for...
The emergence of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza poses a significant threat to human and animal health worldwide. This summary provides an overview of the surveillance efforts implemented in Peru to combat the spread of H5N1 avian influenza. Joint efforts between the authority, the productive sector, and academia date back to the first influenza outbreak in Chile in 2002. Since then, the government has been developing intense clinical and serological surveillance in the domestic birds...