Breeding broiler chickens is an opportunity to get tasty dietary meat in a short time. With a properly selected diet, the bird gains marketable weight in 70-80 days. Broilers are demanding in terms of housing conditions, in order to grow them without loss, it is important to provide proper care.
How to raise broilers
There are two ways of raising broiler chickens: intensive and extensive. The intensive method involves keeping chickens on a deep litter in close quarters - 1 sq. meter accommodate 12 heads. With a cage content even denser - 25 chickens per 1 sq. meter. They are fed with full-value industrial compound feed. With this content, the poultry in 60 days has a meat yield of 1.5-2 kg, but it is dense and not very tasty. Its cost is high.
With extensive growing of broilers at home, the marketable mass of chickens is gained in 3-4 months, the meat has an excellent taste, and the material costs are relatively small. Growing broilers will require a warm, dry environment, sufficient feed and patience.
Growing broilers at home
If you took day-old chicks in the spring, you will have to keep them in the house, the babies need warmth, at least 32-35˚C. At the age of one month, 18-20˚C is enough for them. Take two large cardboard boxes and stick them together with glue, double-sided tape, or a stapler. Cut a hole in the adjacent walls - you get a "two-room dwelling". There will be a kitchen in one half, a bedroom in the other. For 1 sq. m place 13-15 chickens. When crowded, they develop poorly, are easily affected by various infections.
Use newspaper, sawdust, or bran as bedding. Change the bedding regularly, every 2-3 days. For the first two weeks, the chicks should have lighting around the clock, then reduce the daylight hours to 16 hours. To strengthen the immune system, drink the chicks with trivit (tetravit) - 1 drop every three days for 2-3 weeks.
Drink vitamin B12 to chickens daily, dilute one ampoule in a liter of water for 50 heads. To prevent diarrhea, water broilers with water, slightly tinted potassium permanganate, or dilute chloramphenicol in it (1 tablet per liter of water). Do this for 1-1.5 months - broilers can have diarrhea at any age. They react to a change in diet, a change in weather, and dirty bedding and dishes. For normal ventricular function, chickens should always have a shell, chalk (can be replaced with red clay). It is undesirable to water chickens up to two weeks of age with raw water; it is better to make decoctions from onion husks, chamomile, rose hips.
The grown chickens are kept in pens or cages, the stocking density is 4-6 heads per 1 sq. m. In the afternoon, provide broilers with free range, if this is not possible, then let them go for a walk for 1, 5-2 hours. Nutrition is of paramount importance for keeping birds alive and growing well.
How to feed broilers
Feed broiler chickens up to five days with starter compound feed or a mixture of millet, corn and barley grits, and a hard-boiled egg. From the age of five, give wet mash: mix cottage cheese, yogurt, cooked fish and meat waste, finely chopped dandelion greens, onions, nettles into the grain mixture. Add grated carrots or pumpkin. Feed the egg with the shell.
At two weeks of age, give crushed wheat steamed with boiling water. Stir in bone and fish meal into the mash. Give the mash in small portions, but often. In the evening feed only dry food. At three weeks of age, add boiled potatoes and bread to the mash. The first month of life is important for the good development of broilers. If at this time the bird received high-quality feed in sufficient quantities, then there will be no problems with the further growth of chickens.
At the age of one month, chickens are given both crushed grain of wheat, corn, barley, peas, oats, and whole, 50% of which can be germinated. Broilers also willingly eat steamed grain. Suitable food additives include food waste, grass, beetroot and cabbage leaves. Feeding broiler chickens should be enough, feeders should never be empty.
