1. Laying hens healthy breeding rearing process
According to the physiological characteristics of laying hens, their growth and development process can be divided into three stages: that is, 0 to 42 days of age of young chicks for the rearing stage, 43 to 140 days of age for the breeding stage, the rearing stage, breeding stage collectively referred to as the reserve chicken stage. Therefore, there are two types of egg rearing process: the whole three-stage rearing process and the whole two-stage rearing process.
(1) The whole three-stage rearing process will be 0 to 42 days of age of small chicks, 43 to 140 days of age of brooding chickens and 140 days of age after the laying hens, were placed in different sheds for the brooding stage, brooding stage and egg stage of rearing, known as the three-stage rearing process. This feeding process is adapted to the physiological characteristics and growth and development of laying hens, and also facilitates the design of the chicken house construction process. However, in the stage of chicks, a higher temperature is needed, and heating equipment should be added; in the stage of breeding, supplementary heating should be provided in winter in cold areas to ensure the needs of chickens. Separate design of the three types of chicken houses is a prerequisite for this rearing process. Scale chicken farms, the use of this feeding process can reduce the waste of energy.
(2) The whole two-stage rearing process will be 0 to 140 days of age of chicks and brooder chickens in the same coop, 140 days of age after the transfer to the laying hen house rearing, known as the two-stage rearing process. This rearing process eliminates the need for a flock transfer, only at 140 days of age, a transfer out into the egg-laying stage, reducing the process of transferring chickens, changing the house, changing the breeder and other stress factors on the growth and development of chicks, which is conducive to the growth and development of chicks. In the modern chicken production specialization in the refinement of the division of labor, 60 to 70 days of age of the egg reserve hens can be directly raised in the egg cage to evacuate the density. For various reasons lack of investment in breeding chicken rearing space and equipment, but also more in 60 ~ 70 days of age will be the reserve hen transferred to the egg cage rearing.
2. Laying hens healthy breeding rearing
(1) Cage rearing mode According to the different ways of overlapping cages, can be divided into two types of cages and overlapping cages of ladder, according to the number of different layers of rearing can be generally divided into 2, 3 and 4 layers of cages; according to the different locations of the cage set up can be divided into the high-bed cages and the ground cage rearing. Cages are widely used in the egg industry.
1) Ladder Cage Raising The three-layer ladder cage is mostly used for breeding hens and commercial egg-laying hens, and it can also be used for reserve egg-laying hens. The four-layer ladder cage is commonly used in the rearing of reserve laying hens. The advantages of ladder cages are: higher rearing capacity per unit area, less labor-intensive; easy to raise small groups of fine feeding, and especially convenient for immunization, weighing and other operations, and more convenient to catch chickens on the market. Convenient for the strong and weak group, but also convenient for the chickens to feed at the same time, chicken growth and development of better integrity. The disadvantages are: a larger one-time investment in fixed assets (chicken cages); a larger difference in temperature, light intensity and other environments between the upper and lower levels.
2) Overlapping cage rearing This kind of rearing method is mostly used in the rearing of egg chicks and brooder chickens, due to the large investment and complexity of the problem of clearing manure, not much used in the adult laying hens in China.
3) High-bed cage rearing This type of rearing is set up on the ground 1.2 ~ 1.5 meters of the platform, and then set up in the cage on top of the platform. If there is a ready-made house along the height of 3.8 meters above the unused plant, can be used in this way of feeding. The advantages of this feeding method are: high feeding density, easy to strong and weak group, but also to facilitate the chickens at the same time feeding, chicken growth and development of better integrity; the biggest advantage is that you can use the whole one-time manure, which can reduce the labor intensity of workers, but also reduce the environmental pollution of manure cleaning. Disadvantages are: greater investment in fixed assets; temperature, light intensity and other environmental differences between the upper and lower levels.
(2) flat rearing mode This type of rearing mode can be subdivided into the ground flat rearing and net (fence) on the flat rearing of two kinds.
1) Ground level raising This kind of raising method is to lay a layer of about 20 cm thick bedding grass on the floor of the chicken house, the bedding grass can be guillotined straw, wheat straw, corn stalks, etc., and the chickens live on the top of the bedding grass. In the egg culture, this kind of rearing method is generally used for the rearing of reserve chickens, and can also be used for the rearing of egg-laying chickens or breeders if an egg-laying nest is set up in the chicken house.
The advantages of this type of rearing are: less investment in fixed assets, simple equipment. Disadvantages are: low rearing capacity per unit area and labor efficiency, labor intensity; chicken and chicken manure direct contact, easy to infect infectious diseases, especially coccidiosis; chicken living environment is humid, very easy to get infected with aflatoxicosis; group is too large, easy to be frightened, management difficulties; chicken growth and development is not neat.
2) Nets (fences) on the flat raising This feeding method is in the chicken coop spread on the special spot welding mesh or fence, chickens in the net (fence) above the life. This type of rearing in the egg breeding, generally used for egg reserve chicken and egg breeder rearing, can also be used for commercial egg rearing.
Relative to the ground level, the advantages of this rearing method are: chickens are not in direct contact with chicken manure, the control of infectious diseases, especially coccidiosis control effect; chicken living environment is relatively dry, the control of aflatoxicosis has a greater role; chicken house is easy to separate into small rooms, small groups of fine feeding, easy to control the growth and development of chickens in the degree of neatness. The disadvantages are: larger investment in nets and net frames, grill boards and partition nets; low feeding capacity and labor efficiency per unit area, difficult feeding management work such as immunization, beak breaking, sampling and weighing, and high labor intensity. At night the chickens spend the night in special simple cages (Figure 2-6). The site for grazing can be chosen in the orchard or farmland, and a simple fence should be set around the site to prevent chickens from running away. With this type of feeding, each flock of 100 to 200 chickens is herded into a simple cage for the night. Each group of chickens needs an area of about 500 to 1,000 meters2.
(3) Grazing rearing method Used for rearing reserve chickens, egg-laying chickens have also been used in recent years. This way of rearing chicks are still raised in the chick house, 3 to 5 weeks of age after the de-warming of the chicks are in the field grazing rearing. The chickens in the field grazing rearing is only supplemented with feed in the morning and evening, and only supplied with drinking water during the day, and the chickens forage for food on their own in the field. The advantages of this rearing process are: less investment; conducive to improving the physical condition of the reserve chickens and high-quality green egg production. The disadvantages are: immunization, beak breaking, sampling and weighing and other chicken catching operations are more difficult; rearing in the wild, the possibility of being injured by wild animals is greater.
Figure 2-6 Simple chicken cage for grazing rearing