Battery Cage VS Deep Litter System | WHICH IS BETTER?

so you've decided you're going to raise chickens but you're not yet sure how you're going to keep them i'm going to be using cages or the bleeder system like me hi guys how are you well relax just relax in today's video i'm going to be explaining to you everything involved in the two different systems so that you can decide with all the information that you need and i'm also going to be telling you why i chose to use the blitz system and not cages no i'll never use schedules never i'm going to be telling you why [Applause] hi guys welcome back to the channel my name is danielle i love poultry farming very passionate about poultry farming and on this channel i talk to you guys about poultry farming for now yeah for now of course in the future we're going to be doing way more but in case it's your first time here don't forget to click the subscribe button and please hit the notification bell that way you don't miss out on anything and youtube likes it when you hit that like button so i like it too so please don't forget to hit that like button so there are very many systems that are used for portrait farming but today we're going to be talking about the most commonly used uh systems in commercial poultry farming well at least in africa and i know in in most of the world yeah um dipletar system and battery cages we'll start by defining them what is deep litter system well deep letter system is exactly what i have here yeah the chickens are kept in a bun a chicken house just like this and that ban is usually made of concrete the floor is made of concrete then on top of the concrete they put later the litter can be from very many different materials i in particular use wood chips but there are very many other materials that can be used then you'll have drinkers and feeders the drinkers and the feeders can be very different automatic manual all the different kinds i in particular use manual feeders just like this well they're not very manual they're automatic you just put the feeds and the feeds will come out then there are other drinkers that i've used in fact you can check out the video right here on how i make the drinkers that i use on my poetry farm then you'll have patches patches are these things i don't know if you guys can see them while the birds are resting right now then you'll have laying boxes while the chickens go to lay their eggs on the contrary cages are different they're made of galvanized wire mesh they're quite strong and they can be kept in tears you know one two three four levels while the chickens are in sales usually between one to three buds per cell then the water and the feeds are delivered them either automatically all the foods could be delivered manually but the water is always delivered using nipples then when the chicken lays the egg it will just slowly roll down to a place where someone just comes and picks the eggs so now what are the pros and what are the cones of each of the systems we shall start with the type of bugs that can be kept in each system actually this one is not a very big differentiator well groylers are mainly kept in the deep later system which is the one that i use yeah and then layers it really depends on where you are in the world in uganda because people don't have too much money they mainly use the deep litter system but i know in some countries people who keep it on a commercial level most of them will use cages and i'm going to be telling you guys why but recently there are more people who are keeping boilers in cages so ideally any can be used for keeping whichever kind of bikes now let's talk about the space that's required for both when it comes to spacing the deep litter system which is what i use occupies way more space for example my birds right now are spaced at a spacing of around six bags per square meter but for cages because the chickens are kept in tears and they are very close to one another very very close you can keep a lot of birds in a very small space so what does that mean if you're in a place like um a city center or you're in a place where you don't have land and land is very expensive people usually choose to go with the cages because you can keep very many bugs in a really small space people who have a lot of land can go with my system now we shall talk about the initial cost for starting for both of them now the initial cost is way higher if you're going to be using battery cages because you're going to have to buy those battery cages they're not cheap they are very very expensive well depending on which type of battery cages you're going to be using yeah there are countries where you have restrictions on which kind of battery cages you're supposed to use so that the birds do not have some space for loitering inside so that simply means that the battery cages can be very expensive unlike me who doesn't really need battery cages i just construct my chicken house and i start and then again the battery cages will also need concrete on the floor and their concrete needs to be stronger because the battery cages are very heavy so they need the concrete needs to be stronger in order to support the battery cages and then also the structure the structure if you're going to be using deep later system the structure is not as expensive because for battery cages because of the levels of the tears the roof has to be very high the structure you know needs to be constructed in a particular way you know to be able to support the weight of the cages so you're going to spend more money while constructing the structure and like me you can see i can't even touch my roof of course people who use higher roofs and that's that's okay but my aeration is not bad so this this roof is not so bad for me and it works just fine the other thing is that for battery cages the maintenance cost is way higher way higher because they're going to always for example check to make sure the nipples are the nipples are not blocked you need to keep servicing the battery cages you know make sure they're in good state well i don't have a lot of maintenance to do here just cleaning which when someone on battery cages will have to do yeah so the maintenance costs are higher for the battery cages now we should also talk about the labor that's needed the labor is way lower for the battery cages yeah because for example the eggs are just going to be rolling and you just can't pick them you're not going to have to for example deliver the feeds every day like i do because most of people mostly people who use battery cages have automated systems uh they drink us usually need for drinkers just put water in a tank it just flows but people in deep later system usually have to do you know a bit more labor and what i know is that in battery cages people who have you know you can have 10 000 buds and you have one to three people managing that for deep litter system for you to have ten thousand but actually therefore who have depleted systems that are also very automated the feeds are just delivered the water is just delivered but that's less common because usually people go in for their deep data system because they want to save money so because of that they end up using the moral dementory methods like the ones that i use of course the mess the methods work but um they are more labor-intensive the other thing is the management of the farm it's way easier if you have battery cages for example it's easy to pick out a bird which is not laying yeah very easy to identify a bird which is not playing you just keep walking along the cages and then for one two three days you notice ah in this foot i never find the egg for three consecutive days there should be something wrong yeah but for me in the deep literature you know the chickens will just go into their language and lay how will i ever know which one has led you know of course sometimes i can identify which one is laying i can pick them and look on the cloaca with time i've been able to identify which one is laying and which one is not playing but it's way harder in the duplica system and then again things like um again water it's very easily delivered in the in the cages and then it's way easier to you know prevent thefts on a poultry farm if you're using battery cages because you know that in each section i have three bags in each in each cell there are three bites so if you're passing by and you find a bad missing very easy and in case you're a telephone boss you know you're never around and you're always far away you have to be on the phone do this do this it's easier to manage the farm if you're using um battery cages but i'm also a telephone person because i'm only on the farm two days in a week weekends because as you guys know i have to be working injecting people during the week so i've been able to manage i know you guys can manage but yeah that's a very big difference then when we talk about the performance of the birds starting with braillers the performance of birds is way better in the dipleta system for boilers because in the cages as you guys know as boilers grow they become heavier and they prefer to rest more of the time as long as they're not eating and because of that the galvanized wires in the battery cages can you know cause bruises for the chicken breasts and these chicken breasts are precious and tasty for lots of people so you don't want to be eating chicken breasts with max of galvanized wire i think they are less tasty isn't it anyway when it comes to the layers it simply depends on how you manage it ideally talking about it theoretically it's way better performance in the cages because it's easier to monitor the performance of the birds and then because the buds are not running they're not moving around all that energy will be diverted into laying of eggs but for my chickens here you know they keep running around and then it can be quite is it can be quite hard for you to identify which bird is laying which one is not playing so you expect a bit less production but if you do it very well like i'm doing it and you know you understand how to do everything you can be able to match the production of battery cages then there's disease control of course this is i think where the battery cages really outperform the nuclear system yeah because in the depleted system as you can see there's a lot of spillage of water occasionally if you construct your your band very well you'll avoid spillages but i didn't do that i'll probably do that with the next bun that i construct but there can be a lot of spillages and that those spillages lead to development of coccidia in the later and so the chickens can easily develop oxidoses and the other thing is that when birds catch a disease in the dipleta system because the oil is running around from one corner to the other it's very easy for that disease to spread from one bird to the other unlike the battery cages where if a bird gets sick it's really maintained in one place and it can be more easily controlled but the other thing that you need to know is that it is easier to identify a sick bud in the dipleta system because for example if i just moved around right now and i scared the birds you'll see all of them running so if i see one of the birds it's not running it's slow it is weak then i will know that bird has a problem unlike in cages where you know all the birds are just stationary you need to go and check each individual bud for you to be able to identify whether one is sick or not and the other problem is that in the cages the birds because they're not moving they develop something called fatty liver syndrome you know they develop a lot of fats in their body and their livers become very fatty and that affects the production of the birds and the general well-being of the birds causes a lot of stress to their backs and then again the bugs develop what we call paralysis because they're not moving you know they're just in one place it's very common for the birds to get paralyzed you know for their legs to get paralyzed now when you talk about controlling the manure it's better or easier in cages because all the manure will just go in one place and then once in a while you'll just come and drive out all the manure but the manure is of way better quality in the deep litter system this is very nice you know compost you know this you take it to your garden very fertile very nice it's literally soil that you can use in your in your farm or for vegetables for flowers anything like that it's very very good so the manure is of better quality from the dipleta system because the cages produce wet manure and wet manure is very very hard to deal with actually if you're going to be using battery cages i want to remind you to take very serious thought of why you'll be dumping your manure because it can be very hard to get rid of and when it comes to marketing it depends on where you are in some countries where there are restrictions on you know using cages and all those kinds of stuff you'll find it hard to get market for eggs which are kept in the dip in cages because you know people will not be buying them because the buds are kept poorly and so you'll be able to sell eggs which are kept in a deep later system way more expensively but really again that depends on which country you're in and then there are chicken faces where is your control if you're in battery cages yeah things like feather picking things like egg eating you know cannibalism because the chickens are not really in contact with each other in the battery cages you you never really suffer from such devices whilst if you don't control them if you don't do the right things it can be very easy to develop such such tendencies in the deep litter system so why do i use the deep litter system and not the battery cages well i was i was not always like this yeah while i was starting out i also had plans of you know getting big battery cages keeping lots of birds in very big cages but i didn't have the money so i had to go with this but slowly by slowly i've fallen in love with the birds oh falling in love with these beautiful creatures i really love them and my conscious is just not okay with the idea of keeping them in cages yeah i just i just i'm just not okay with it so there's just no way i'm going to be keeping my buds in there in cages i want them to roam around i want them to move around you know i want to be able to to pick them cut with them just like this and they love it too so um because because of that um i'm not going to be keeping my buds in cages never impossible yeah i'll just get better ways of keeping them you know you want the birds flying or do patches things like that they are happier they are less stressed so for me because i love the buds i'll make sure i keep them in a deep litter system or probably in the future i'll even do a furring system but if you want to use battery cages i shall not judge you no thou shall not judge so i will not judge you you can go ahead use it i don't use it because i'm not okay with it but please just weigh everything that i've told you and also don't forget to follow your conscience so guys thanks again for watching my videos don't forget to like subscribe and share the videos leave a comment in case you have any question i'll try to answer them or make a video about it and come back next time for more videos love you guys a lot [Music] you

Channel: Farm Up

Views: 182,640

Keywords: chicken farming, deep litter, poultry business for beginners, poultry business plan, poultry farming business, deep litter vs battery cages, deep litter system vs battery cage system, battery cage, battery cage system, battery cage vs deep litter, poultry farming business, farm up, farm up africa

Id: hwPbA2H_oQc

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020