There are good feeding practices that farmers abuse, thinking that they are not necessary,  while sometimes they do or neglect them ignorantly and along the line they encounter problems such as reduced weight, disease outbreak,  poor growth etc.

There are some good feeding practices that seems common but they are very important, some say you can apply common sense, but at times we notice that “common sense”  as they say is not common. So you need to know and apply them.

Some of these feeding practices include;

Grouping:

place birds of similar ages, weights, and  production levels together so that more specific rations can be formulated.

Feeding:

Do not place birds of different breed, age and production levels together,  example, placing broilers and layers together or a day old chicks and 2 weeks chicks together, it is absolutely wrong because the older ones will suppress the younger ones and if it continues,  You will definitely get bad output at last.

Therefore when feeding, place birds of the same breed, age and production levels together for a good result, because good feeding yields good health, weight and profit.

Climate:

Every good farmer should be conscious of the weather, specifically,  The temperature of his/her poultry house. If your poultry house is too cold or hot, your birds will respond to that effect.

So, the diets of your birds must be adjusted to meet the climatic conditions whether hot or cold season.

Wastage of feed:

Any farmer that wants to make profit must be economically wise. You must try as much as possible to avoid feed wastage, because this can increase the cost of production.

Make sure the feeders are designed in such away not to waste feeds.

Monitor feeds and forage quality:

Farmers should endeavour to make use of high quality feeds in feeding the birds, this will allow the birds to reach the optimum production levels.

Additives:

§  Examples of feed additives are; probiotics, phytogenics and hormones such as steroids that promote and improve production  performance and growth rates.

§  Feed additives should be used as prescribed on the label.

§  Feed additives can help to improve birds performance.

Monitor health and disease:

§  The health of birds should be properly monitored as sick birds are not productive and will continue to consume feed.

§  All birds must be on regular deworming and parasite control schedule.

§  They should be vaccinated as at when due and monitored for any disease .

§  Also check out for ecto-parasites, and control them immediately before it becomes a thorn on the birds.  Ecto-parasites are those parasites that live outside the body of  the host. Examples of these parasites include; ticks, mites, lice etc.

§  Isolate the sick birds from healthy birds Once you notice any sign of abnormality in such birds.

vFeed storage

§  Feed ingredient quality is a very critical part of poultry nutrition.

§  Good storage facilities and conditions are very important

§  Storage of the vitamin premixes should be a cool dry and dark place to maintain its quality and texture.

§  Grains with high moisture content should be dried to at least 12-14% moisture.

Good feeding practices are very important for every farmer that wants to make it in poultry production.  You cannot give out what you don’t have! Good feeding gives healthy and sizeable birds!