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An increasing number of home garden owners are convinced that keeping hens for eggs or meat is beneficial and not as troublesome as it seems. The most responsible and painstaking stage in this case is the cultivation of chickens, which require a particularly careful attitude, and a special feeding regimen.
How to choose food and create conditions for the growth of young animals? How to care for chickens? And what methods of content are preferred at home?
Care for chickens in the first days of life
The future development and health of chickens depends on many factors. But, even creating a bird all the conditions for growth, it is difficult to wait for good results if the chicks are initially weak. Therefore, when selecting from an incubator, the young are strictly sorted, taking only the most viable individuals for further cultivation.
The first days of life are the most difficult and responsible period for both chicks and poultry breeders.
Care for daily chickens, the most vulnerable to diseases and often suffering from improperly selected diets, should be aimed at creating and maintaining:
- the required temperature regime;
- optimum humidity of air;
- lighting and ventilation mode;
- balanced diet and dosage.
Dry dried chickens from the incubator are transferred to a brooder with conditions created for a comfortable nest of chicks or placed under an experimental poultry.
The basic requirements for the room, where the number of chickens is located, is:
- dryness and cleanliness;
- maintaining proper temperature and humidity;
- correctly chosen lighting and ventilation mode.
Before the poultry house accepts the chickens, it is cleaned, disinfected, laid down with a loose loose litter, checked for protection from rodents, and equipped with everything necessary to support the life of pets.
To such equipment carry not only lamps and heating devices, hygrometers and thermometers, but also feeders and drinking bowls. Their design should be chosen in such a way that it is safe to use them, and the quantity is determined based on the number of livestock. On the meter of area at the maintenance of chickens in house conditions seljat no more than 12 chickens.
Later, the rooms are regularly washed, the old bedding is cleaned, disinfection and ventilation are carried out.
Air temperature and lighting when growing chickens
The first days and weeks of life chicks often suffer from hypothermia or, on the contrary, excessively high temperature. The fact is that up to a month old the organism of chickens can not sufficiently quickly and effectively adapt to changing external conditions.
Therefore, in the care of chickens in the first days of life necessarily include strict control over the temperature in the poultry house or brooder:
- The first day the chicks should be held in an atmosphere close to that in the incubator. And the air for this warm up to a comfortable 35 ° C.
- The next day the room starts to cool gradually. In the first week, air can have a temperature of 30-32 ° C.
- Such heating is necessary not only during the day, but also at night, especially the attentive poultry farmer needs to be in cloudy weather and cold spells.
- From the second week, the temperature is lowered by a couple of degrees, and the poultry is already feeling fine at a temperature of at least 21 ° C.
It is convenient to measure the temperature by using a thermometer located inside the house. It is better if the device is fixed slightly above the floor, at the level of the chicken. This will give the poultryman an accurate picture of the bird's well-being.
About whether chicks are comfortable when keeping them at home can also be judged by their behavior:
- Bored under a lamp or next to each other chicks clearly freeze.
- From the heat of the bird ruffle feathers and wings, become inactive and drop to the floor.
No less than the temperature, when chickens are grown, the correct illumination of the house is important. The first few days the lamp does not turn off at all. This poultry breed pushes the pets more actively to eat, move and grow. Then the chicks begin to gradually accustom to the dark, turning off the lighting first for 15 minutes, then for half an hour, increasing the rest time every day.
Feeding chickens when growing at home
A balanced diet, selected according to age and needs, is a guarantee of good health and active growth of chickens. The first feeding of chickens when nursing and growing at home is carried out shortly after the appearance of the chicks to the light. The earlier the young will be offered food, the sooner they acclimatize.
Usually the ability to independently select food from chickens appears at the age of 8 hours. By this time, they can offer a crushed, hard-boiled chicken egg. It is included in the menu for 3-4 days, gradually adding to the diet all new useful products.
The first additive is cooked millet grains, then in the menu appears crushed wheat and crushed corn. The choice of these two cereals is due to good digestibility, which can not be said about oats or barley. The coarse shells of their seeds cause irritation of the digestive tract and lead to diarrhea in the chicks.
Growing chickens at home suggests that when feeding should not be used only dry food, for example, cereals, but also greens, lactic products, mineral supplements, potatoes. Greenery, which has a beneficial effect on digestion, falls into the feeders already in the first days. It can be:
- clover;
- scalded and chopped nettle;
- green onion, containing, in addition to vitamins, mineral salts, moisture and fiber, and also useful for the phytoncids;
- root vegetables of carrots, which are given to the chickens in a crushed form.
An irreplaceable source of protein at an early age is cottage cheese, whey, curdled milk, buttermilk. They are added to wet food and grain mixtures.
From the fourth day in the place of keeping chickens at home put containers with small gravel, seashells and chalk, a meat or bone meal or fish meal is added to the feed, which is an excellent source animal protein.
When growing at home, chicken instead of flour can be offered finely chopped meat prunes or chopped earthworms. The consumption of protein is especially important when it comes to the cultivation of chicken meat breeds.
When caring for daily chickens, feeding is done at intervals of two hours, laying out food on flat sheets or pallets. Then the amount of meals is reduced to 6, and after 2-3 weeks to four. An undergrown bird feeds in the morning and evening.
How to grow chickens at home, if they were born in the cold season, when there is not enough green fodder? In this case, the bird is offered germinated seeds of cereals, including a large amount of vegetable protein, fiber and vitamins. Herbal flour will also be a good help.
Excellent results when growing chickens shows their feeding with ready-mixed compounds. More often such mixed fodders are divided into starting, growth and finishing and differ in the size of the fraction and composition.
In addition to feed and mineral supplements, there must always be room-temperature clean water in the house. Also, chicks are regularly given a solution of potassium permanganate, which is a kind of prevention of intestinal diseases. The liquid is changed daily, along with a thorough rinsing of the containers. Drinkers for chickens should be safe. Since hypothermia is fraught with the death of a chick, it should not be allowed for the bird to get wet by drinking or to enter the water.
Features of keeping chickens at home
During the growing of chickens at home, special attention is paid to birds lagging behind in development, weakly gaining weight and less actively than their peers feeding. In order to avoid even greater oppression on the part of strong rivals, such chickens are planted and provide them with personal care.
From a week-old age, when keeping chickens at home, they are allowed to walk. Staying in the sun is an important part of the prevention of rickets and other diseases caused by a deficiency of vitamins and metabolic disorders.
The first walks last no more than an hour and a half, but the growing chicks with time can all stay in the paddock for a longer time. The main thing is that the space for walks is safe, well ventilated and illuminated. For a bird, it is better to provide a canopy and drinking bowls and feeders for it.
Proper nutrition and chickens content - video
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