Some give at day old but some say it’s not good. So which one do I take?

Weakness in chicks may be due to transport stress, bad management, illness and a bunch of other reasons. A weak chick will often not eat or drink and there are several ways to help them recover. Let’s look at them.


Maintain Optimal Temperature: The temperature under the brooder heater should be 95oF (35oC). Weak chicks may not have the strength to find the warmest spot by themselves. So pick them and place them under the brooder. Also make sure that there is no draught. If there is draught, the chicks will move away from its path as shown in the image below.




Check for Pasting: Pasting occurs when dry droppings seals the chicks vent and prevent it from passing out droppings. This condition has to be treated immediately. You have to constantly check your chicks for any sign of pasting.


To remove pasting, first use a warm, wet towel to soak it before removing. The chick must not get too cold during the process else the pasting will reoccur.

Give Sugar Solution: If the weak chick is free from the 2 problems already discussed, try giving it few drops of sugar solution. The sugar solution will give the weak chick a boost of energy and hopefully, it will start to eat and drink. But note that you shouldn’t give sugar solution for a long time as it can cause diarrhea, which could cause pasting.

Give Yogurt and Boiled Egg: If the weak chick can eat and drink, then consider giving it warmed, plain yogurt and possibly boiled egg mixed in feed. Again, don’t give these for a long time.

Other Things to Do: If the weak chick is being pecked by others, separate it using wire mesh so that it can still see other chicks (flock animals like chicks need company). Keep it comfortable by providing food, water and warmth. You can also add multivitamins in their drinking water. If you suspect that the chick is sick, it will be better if you call a vet to check it out. This decision can help save the others from impending sickness.

Interesting finding:


You can produce maggots from fibrous vegetable material and poultry droppings. You’ll need something like a tank with a capacity of one cubic metre (1m3). Fill it with water until the water level is about 15cm from the top. Then dried stalks of maize, amaranth, groundnut, soya and other legumes are soaked in the water and some poultry droppings are added. Flies will come and lay their eggs in the soaked material. After five to seven days, the eggs will hatched and larvae would have attended a large enough size. Beyond 7 days, the maggots will develop into adult flies.


You must cover the tank to protect the eggs from intense sunlight. If you don’t, up to 50 percent of the eggs will die.


You can produce maggots this way, dry them and use it to formulate feed for various animals.

Another mtd is described here: http://www.farmersjoint.com/thread-301.html. I've tried it out!
   

I read that duckweeds can be fed to pigs. I think this will be a very cheap source of protein to the pigs, especially if you dry it. Duckweed grows very fast - it can double its weight in less than 2 days under the right condition. I wonder if you know anybody utilizing duckweed for any animal.

To make fermented feed for animals like chickens, you place the feed in a bucket and cover it with water. Leave it for at least 2 days and you get a fermented feed. You have to make sure the feed is completely covered with water at all time, else it will spoil.


Some people online said they get good result with fermented feeds. What I’ve read range from less smelly droppings, improve digestion and intestinal health, increase egg production and egg weight, stronger shells and improved growth. The good thing about it is that it is easy to make. Large commercial farms don’t use it not because it is not beneficial, but because they don’t have the necessary equipment to handle wet feed. Their costly feed equipment were designed to handle dry feed. But for small holder farmers with fewer than a thousand birds or so, you can still make fermented feed for your chickens! I’ll be doing it for my next batch of chicks. 

This is a very good thing to do during the dry season. In case you don’t know, mulching means covering the soil with something to prevent the bad effect of intense sunlight on the soil. Intense sunlight evaporates water and makes it unavailable for plants. This increases the cost of irrigation also. The sun can also kill a lot of beneficial microorganisms in the soil.


You can mulch with organic materials like cut grasses, leaves and other plant materials. But if you don’t have access to them in large quantity, you can use nylon. It may be somehow costly, but you can reuse them a number of times – depending on the quality. I’ve not tried this before, but from my little research they said it works and so I’ll test it later. If anyone has experience about this, please share. Least I forget, mulching also suppress weed growth, so you save time and money.

Here's an image from nairaland: http://www.nairaland.com/2015314/modern-...-million/2

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It is pathetic to see how farmers will do all the work but end up selling at a ridiculous price. How to we stop this trend?

Areas with large expanse of agricultural land are always remote areas where there’s likely to be snakes and other God-knows-what creatures. What measure will you put in place to control snakes? And those areas are not that close to hospitals!

Is anyone here into crayfish farming? Or do you have any experience about it?

What do you think about using light over fish ponds to attract insects at night? Those that fall into the pond the fish would eat. Isn’t that cheap protein?

   

If you have rabbits, can you show us a picture and tell us one or two thing about them?

I’ve read that mushroom farming is quite lucrative. Is anybody here into it? Please give us some tips.

According to a May 2011 report by the humane society of the United State, titles “An HSUS Report: Food Safety and Cage Egg Production”, States in the US have begun legislating against cage egg production and dozens of major U.S. food retailers, restaurant chains, foodservice providers etc. are switching to cage-free eggs. Extensive scientific evidence strongly suggests this trend will improve food safety. All sixteen scientific studies published in the last five years comparing Salmonella contamination between caged and cage-free operations found that those confining hens in cages had higher rates of Salmonella, the leading cause of food poisoning related death in the United States. This has led prominent consumer advocacy organizations, such as the Center for Food Safety, to oppose the use of cages to confine egg-laying hens.
What’s your thoughts about this? Battery cage has made work so easy!

Broilers are fast-growing birds and this can put a strain on not only their heart, but also their legs. A common leg defect is spraddle leg. This is a situation whereby the feet tendons are weak, causing the legs to splay outward. Spraddle legs can also be as a result of vitamin/calcium deficiency or leg injury which may result when chicks are raised on slippery surfaces like newspaper.
Broilers are fast-growing birds and this can put a strain on not only their heart, but also their legs. A common leg defect is spraddle leg, also called splayed leg. This is a situation whereby the feet tendons are weak, the affected chick is unable to stand and its legs will be spread out to the left and right. In milder cases, the chick may be able to stand and walk in a too-wide stance with difficulty.

   
Image Courtesy of Fresheggsdaily.com.

   

Causes
1.    Vitamin & Minerals Deficiency: Without enough nutrients to develop strong muscles and bones, splayed legs might occur. Deficiency in vit D3 and calcium can cause the problem. To avoid this, add a few drops of cod liver oil to the chick water once a week for up to 5 weeks. Be sure not to add too much as this may result in runny stools. Alternatively, feed them only balanced feed.

2.    Leg injury: This may occur when chicks are raised on slippery surfaces like newspaper.

3.    Incubation Temperature: It can occur if incubation is not done at the correct temperature or if there is wide temperature fluctuation.

4.    Poor Position in the Egg During Incubation:

Treating Splayed Leg
It is easy to treat if you notice it at the early stage and you can do it yourself. You can do this by splinting the legs with tape, rubber band, band-aid etc. The pictures below will help. After splinting, the chicks will be able to walk with the splint after trying for some time. After 2 or 3 days, the chicks can be able to walk without the splint.

   
http://www.fresheggsdaily.com/2012/04/spraddle-leg.html

   
http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.co...e-leg.html

Visit: http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.co...e-leg.html and http://www.fresheggsdaily.com/2012/04/spraddle-leg.html.

Catfish farmers normally raise their fish until they attain a weight of 0.8kg or more before they sell. But in mélange farming, catfish are raised to 300-500g (for 2.5-3 months) before they’re sold either fresh or smoked. This method is highly profitable because at such a young age, catfish will grow faster while eating less feed.
It would be far more profitable if you hatch your own fish than when you buy them.

Possible Markets
• You can sell them fresh or smoked to market women that sell fish. They’ll buy in bulk and no packaging is required.
• You can sell them smoked to shops/malls or in offices like the banks, government institutions etc. You’ll get ready customers if it is well packaged.

Giving honor to whom honor is due: I got this idea from a forum friend called Robonski on Nairaland. From his posts and threads I see him as an experience fish farmer. If you have specific questions about this topic, you can contact him for help.

What is Withdrawal Period?
When you give drug to a bird, some of the drug will end up in the egg and flesh of the bird, but after some days it will gradually vanish. Therefore withdrawal period for egg or meat is the time between when you last medicate the birds and the time when the drug can no longer be detected in the egg or meat. Different drugs have different withdrawal period as specified by the manufacturer. If the drug given is also used in humans, then any egg laid between this period have to be thrown away and the bird must not be killed and eaten.

Pasted vent occurs when droppings stain the vent of the birds in questions. This is usually a sign that something is wrong and you should take action immediately.
Symptoms
• Diarrhea, whitish droppings, loss of vent feathers, red or bloody vent, soft, swollen abdomen, whitish sores on the vent and/or in the throat, sour crop, weight loss, drop in egg production.
Possible Causes
• Increase pH levels and an imbalance of bad bacteria in the digestive tract. If not taken care of, the bacteria may spread to the reproductive system and as far as the crop, causing sour crop.
• Dirty water, moldy feed, excessive heat, stress, poor health.
Prevention:
• 1 tablespoon/gallon of water of apple cider vinegar.
• Add probiotics powder to their daily feed.
• Give plain, unflavored yogurt occasionally.
Treatment:
• Use probiotics or Apple Cider Vinegar until you see improvement.
• Offer molasses flush (1/2 cup/gallon of water). Replace with fresh water after several hours. The molasses will help flush out the bad bacteria from the digestive tract.
• 2-4 tablespoon/gallon of apple cider vinegar with the mother in it.
• 1 table spoon of plain unflavoured yogurt per bird per day.
• Bloody droppings can be as a result of coccidiosis or necrotic enteritis. This is a serious condition with high mortality rate within a short time. So you need the help of a vet immediately or you can give them a coccidiosis drug.

If you have any questions regarding this writeup, please ask them here.

Hmm, I was surprise when my birds got infected with fowlpox despite the fact that they’ve been previously vaccinated. We have to revaccinate immediately to prevent further spread. Fowlpox and ILT are the only diseases that can be vaccinated for even when the birds are infected with them.

Hello all. I missed when I was suppose to deworm my birds, and now it is clashing with when I’m suppose to give routine antibiotics to prevent Mycoplasma G. infection. So can I give both on the same day?

I’m considering integrating beehives with chickens and rabbits in the future. So I’m wondering if there would be problem if I site behives close to poultry and rabbit pens. That is, problem of bee stings and any other problems.