Profeeds Small Scale Egg Production MasterClass

[Music] [Music] so [Music] greetings to you all our profits farmers my name is brenda candiero and today i'm going to talk to you about egg production on a small scale so i've got uh with me today about 470 uh layers at 34 weeks and i'm just going to take you through egg production and bed management housing management and i just want to remind you today that this is not something new but it's something that we've been teaching on powerpoint and all in our live trainings but again i thought that today it would make more sense for me to actually come on a farm and i talk to you whilst you're looking at the chickens i'm going to talk about the housing structure so remember with layers with egg production there are two different types the first one is battery cages where you've seen layers pegged in tires in cages going up and there's also what we call a deep litter system which is a system that i will show you today uh there's there are differences between the two but the end result is the same and the end result is that we want to have maximum egg production and we want our flock to perform well so that we not we do not run into losses so the first thing that i will talk to you about um wherever whether it's a broiler farm or a pig farm or a layer farm the most important thing is biosecurity and this doesn't matter it doesn't matter whether you've got 10 chickens or a thousand chickens or 50 000 chickens biosecurity we talk of preventing diseases or protecting the lives of our beds so the first thing that we need to see every time we get to a farm is what we call a foot deep or if you are allowing vehicles to get to your chicken place we expect to see a wheel deep and in this wheel deep this is where we put our disinfectant and everyone who's coming from wherever even the workers if as they come in um into the chicken house we want them first to disinfect their shoes right we normally recommend that let your work suits your gumboots be at the chicken houses so that you wear them and they are clean they are disinfected right and as you come in now as you're getting into the into the chicken house by the entrance we expect to see a foot deep you dip your shoes there and in there it's very important to note that number one the dilution is is correct so if you put more water and less chemical it's not going to be effective so and then again we also don't want the water to get very dirty so we always recommend that besides your foot deep you have like a dish or another dip with just clean water for you to take off all the soil and everything because what happens in the food deep is that if it becomes too dirty then it's going to reduce the effectiveness of our chemical so make sure that you keep your foot deep clean all the time right we also want you uh to have like a hand sanitizer because remember you're going to be handling the feeders you're going to be handling the drinkers even the chickens themselves you're going to be picking eggs maybe you will 10 liter in the liter that is in the nesting boxes so make sure that your hands are sanitized and they are clean before you get into the chicken house and then another thing that we also need to look at is visitors and we need to as much as we can minimize people who are just coming to visit our birds just to check on them to see how we are doing to to count the eggs that we are picking so we don't want unnecessary visits from people because you don't know where they are coming from and you don't know what they are bringing and they are a high risk in that they may carry pathogens they may carry bacteria and bring it to your flock and when they leave after two or three weeks you're starting to get sick beds and now you don't know where it's coming from so inasmuch as you would want people to see how good you are doing it's better to take photos and show them rather than having people coming to visit you unnecessarily unless they are coming to deep to give take advice or they coming to work here otherwise please minimize visitors as much as you can right and now when it comes to uh the housing or the housing structure this is uh where we're keeping our chickens this is where the production um is happening we've got our lameness in there we've got the birds and the feeding and the drinking everything is happening in this house and uh where i am today what they've done is they've got basically like where the birds go and sleep and they can lay eggs and then in the afternoon they are free to move in and out so as you can see uh they've got like a shed in front right and then at the back it's closed up and they've got their laying uh boxes there as well as some of the feeders because we don't want to restrict these beds so we want them to be moving about freely so the first important thing that we need to look at for housing is talking density and when we talk of stocking density we are saying how many beds are we putting per square meter right and i remember we always say that for broilers uh we always talk about 10 bits per square meter or maybe up to 12 beds per square meter in winter but when we are talking about uh these uh hands we reduce the stocking density to about six or seven maximum beds per square meter so this means that at every square meter we are expecting to find seven or less beds right this is what um it's because when you are building your house and you calculate at seven beds per square meter you are also giving room or you're giving space to your feeders to your nesting boxes and to to your drinkers and i will show you that with these beds they've got a natural behavior that they always want to exercise on a daily basis so you also need to have patching they need to climb up they need to fly around a little bit and it's allowed so that we maintain the bed welfare right so ventilation number one is very important right we don't want to close up our birds because remember as they are eating and as droppings are coming out the droppings will have ammonia and all other gases they are also breathing out carbon dioxide and all these gases we need them to go out so we don't want to keep bed gases inside right and they also breathe in oxygen just like us so we also want fresh air to come in i love this place because it's surrounded by trees so i would assume that we've got very nice and clean oxygen around this place and if we close up the house it means we can't have that oxygen getting in and oxygen is very important uh for for the metabolism of these beds if oxygen is limited even our egg production will go down so remember that when we are talking of layers when we are talking of egg production what we want at the end of the day is for each hand to give us an egg at least about 27 hours so this is what we want and we must make sure that everything that we are doing we are going towards our goal and then the other thing that we also need to consider when we are constructing our house is the light right we need light inside remember that from our previous um our trade live trainings we've always repeatedly say that lighting stimulates egg production so if there's darkness in the house it means that the egg is not going to be produced so make sure that you've got enough or adequate light getting in and we always talk about at least 16 hours of light per day so like at 34 35 weeks like these birds they need about 16 hours a day of light which means that in winter when it the sun sets around five it means you actually have to provide lighting either you use electricity or you can use solar lights but you need to make sure that they are getting adequate lighting to stimulate egg production and then one of the most important aspects of layer production or egg production is feeding and drinking right and let me just take you back to our feeding uh uh regime at profits for layers so we've got a five phase feeding right and we start with the chick starter which is fed from day old to eight weeks and then we go to the layer developer which is like a grower and this is also important because it develops the beds it develops the organs as they prepare for egg production and we feed the layered developer from eight weeks to up to 16 weeks and then we've got another feed as before we step into the production feeds we've got a pre-lay and a pre-lay is a feed that is also given to the layers from 16 weeks until you get to 5 percent production so by 5 percent production i i mean when you put 100 beds when you start to pick five eggs a day for about three consecutive days then you know you have reached your five percent production and when this happens now you move on to layer phase one which is a production feed you will feed layout phase one from five percent production up until 45 weeks and then from 45 weeks all the way until you cow your beds or you get rid of them you move on to layer first two so layer phase one and layer phase two both are production feeds but layer phase two has got a higher calcium because you see that as the beds get older the shells of the eggs they start to soften and the first two will correct that softness and breaking of shells so it will be low spec as much as far as protein is concerned but as far as the calcium is contained it's got higher so if you've got beds that are 72 weeks old and you continue to feed them phase one you may get the eggs but the shells will not be as strong so we actually recommend you to move with the faces as we recommend so like today in this farm they've got these beds at 34 weeks and they are still feeding layer phase one right and um the most important thing to note is that we are not feeding a pellet this is a mesh or in the form of a meal and uh as you will see it's got like grains uh crushed maize which is very important for the gizzard uh for the geezers of these beds and when it comes to feeding with layers we do not especially at production we do not recommend ad-lib feeding ad-lib feeding is whereby you come in the morning and you feel your feeders and you don't allow the feet to run out you keep on topping and they keep on eating now when we are talking about these uh these layers one we don't want to underfeed them and number two we don't want to over feed them we just want to give them just the correct amount of feed and with our profits layer feed we recommend that each bed gets 110 grams per day of feed so you just calculate like here they've got about 470 beds so that's 470 times 110 grams and it's about 51.7 kgs per day right so this is what they're supposed to give per day if you give less you might only maintain the birds but you will not get the egg if you feed more you will overfeed the birds will start to have uh fat around the orthodox and you start to get eggs breaking inside and sometimes they actually stop laying when they are overweight so when you need to take into consideration that with layers it's always always the recommended feed per day and now you'll find that with these beds they can get bored if you feed them in the morning and they finish their feet and then uh they've got nothing to do they start to peck each other they start to run around they start to do all sorts of things so we normally recommend that you do what you call split feeding whereby you feed half remember for these beds i said 51.7 so let's call it 52 52 kgs per day so you are doing half the feed in the morning so let's say around 7 you come and you feed 20 26 kgs and you just divide the feed depending on the number of feeders that you have we recommend that you have more speed feeding space so that there is no pressure when it comes to eating there is no boiling so your feeding space must be adequate right and then you feed the other half let's say at 3 pm this will allow them to have feed all the time but on our side we are not over feeding so please make sure that you can we would really recommend split feeding and there are some people who do it three times a day so whatever suits you but just make sure that you are not exceeding the recommended um feeding quantities right and then um when it comes to drinking right remember water is also as important as the feed and we always tell you and teach you that when you give 10 grams of feed give the two times um the amount of water so 10 grams of feed at least your chicken must be consuming about 20 meals off of water so water is very important and again i will repeat that water availability is one thing and water quality is also another thing it depends where you're getting your water from if you don't trust your sauce we recommend that you actually put chemicals in the water you can put chlorine tablets so that you kill all pathogens because water dirty water is a big risk to your flock and you end up treating diseases just because the water was not clean so we recommend that you clean if you've got nipple drinkers clean them if you've got this type of bell drinkers clean them every morning before you refill with water so that they are no pathogens but like in this season it's very hot and we want to avoid heat stress so your birds need to be drinking as much water as they can so that they don't get dehydrated and they don't they are not heat stressed so many people who normally call us complaining that they've got birds at 30 weeks but they're still not laying eggs what is the problem is it your feed is it uh are they sick or what so there are so many factors that can cause your birds not to lay eggs right and the first thing that i want to show you here as you're looking at this beautiful girl that i'm holding um the first thing that we need to look at is the comb right this thing and with the comb it to show that the hen is mature and is ready to lay an egg it must be big and bright red as you can see this and even as you can look around here you'll see that almost all the combs are mature they are bright red and they are nice right and so this is a sign that this chicken is actually mature and it can lay an egg right the second thing that i want to show you but i don't know if you can see is this what we call a pubic bone and these are two bones in between the legs and you will notice that when the birds are still smaller it's still a bit closed and it opens with edge so you must be able to put at least three or four fingers in between uh in between the the pubic bones and this is where the egg comes out and if it's not wide enough it means that hen is not ready to lay eggs and then when you get your point of lay at 18 weeks another important thing that you also need to look at is the weight of the birds so we expect that for a bed to start laying it should be with an average weight of 1.4 kgs so if you've got a 1 kg bed it's surely not going to lay and we also don't want to have these girls above 2 kgs because now they are on the other side of the scale they are now too heavy and they will not be as productive right and another thing that might also hinder your layers from laying eggs is stress and stress in these beds is something very important and if we do not manage stress in layer beds they will stop laying and layers can get stressed with anything really they can get stressed from noise from movement let's say there's a dog that runs around here they panic and they are stressed if it rains so hard and there is a hair storm and the noise from the hair storm it can also cause the birds to get stressed and sometimes uh we've seen that even noise from people uh anything that they are not used it can actually stress them like i i can tell you that if they're watching me with the camera and i'm talking all the way it might stress them as also layers do not want stressful conditions and we normally recommend that when you think that your layers or your beds are stressed please just provide a stress pack or a mineral and vitamin pack into the water for three to four days and this should actually cause them to eat because remember when they are stressed they stop eating or they eat less and when they eat less now you don't get that egg so you need to manage stress so that your breads are okay and they are happy we i also spoke about beds warfare with layers you need to allow them to show their natural behavior so things like patching uh pecking they like it it's also very it's also a very good habit to throw in greens here and there some people use lucine some throw vegetables anything that you can so that you keep them busy if you don't do that they'll start pecking each other and there is a a a disorder in behavior that can come that is called cannibalism carnivalism is whereby the chickens start to peck on each other until they bleed until they kill each other and once that behavior starts in your chicken run it is very viral and it is very difficult to stop so for you to avoid cannibalism manage the stress and make sure that your birds are happy all the time behind me this is our factory right this is where the herns come to lay their eggs and we also encourage you that you have enough nesting boxes and we normally recommend uh for one nesting box one nesting boxes is for five beds right so you calculate the number of beds that you have for you to note the number of nest boxes that you want and as you can see they've used wood here and they always put hay inside right i want to talk about one about um something very important on managing nesting boxes and this is hygiene right this is where the eggs are laid and you take them and then you are taking them off to the market so number one you must make sure that the place is clean because remember when the hen sits in here to lay an egg the inside of the chicken is actually coming out with the egg and at times this inside of the chicken will be in contact with the surface so if this is not clean it means that as now the orbiter goes back it's going to carry with its bacteria viruses and all sorts and then your beds will get sick so it's very important to make sure that it's very clean and it's a very good hygiene and also it helps that then when the egg is laid you can look at this egg it's very nice and there's no need for for cleaning this because it's already very clean so if you've got dirty nesting boxes you will get dirty eggs and i'm sure customers will run away from you when you are selling them dirty eggs so make sure that your hygiene is fine because if it's not then this is a high risk for contamination of the eggs and even the chicken organs and the chickens will get sick okay so we are here now and this is where the joy of egg production is where you actually now have picked the eggs and they're ready for the market and i'm sure you can see these crates are empty because when we came in here the eggs were being taken to the market but on a daily basis uh out of their 470 they're picking about 15 to 16 crates of eggs a day which is not bad which is okay so um when we talk of egg storage let's say you're picking your eggs and you're storing them we always want the eggs to be in a cool dry place so we don't want any moisture because it will cause the eggs to go bad very quickly so the place must be dry and the place must uh must also be cool right and then i think when you are selling off your eggs this is now like a marketing tip right but we don't i wouldn't want to come to your place and i buy a crate of 30 eggs and they are five are very big three are very small and and they're all mixed in the in the in the tray so we always encourage and recommend that you grate your eggs according to their size so you have the small you have the standard if you're getting the jumbos the whatever but just sort them out according to their sizes right and then i'm just going to show you quickly here um the quality of the egg so when we look at the quality of the egg normally we're looking at how the yolk is looking we don't want an egg when you break it and the yolk is running away from the egg white they must stay uh intact and this shows that the egg is fresh and it's of good quality and then the other thing that we know people are concerned about is the yoko kala and i want you to note that your color has nothing to do with the nutritional value of the egg but i know with with people some prefer it's more yellow or some prefer an orange yolk so it varies so you just um you have to be um you must be able to cater the needs of your market but when you are feeding with profits we always say so we use this i'll show you this i call this um it's it's it's a color fan a a york color fan right and it's got different these are all yellows but you can see that the intensity of the yellow is very different so it starts off it's almost whitish and it gets all the way to a deep orange and on this you've got numbers so it's ranges from one all the way to 14. so what we're basically doing here is i want to measure the egg yolk of this egg right the color of this egg right so what you do is you will need a white base right so that you can actually see so when you break it like that and as i was telling you you can see it's intact the yolk and the egg white the abu men they are all into they're both intact right so you take your fan and you're just trying to see and to match the fan with the yoke so you can see it's not even there and i'll go all the way to eight right right and i think this is around 11 so it's 11 on the dsm um york color fan and don't worry about getting this you don't need this i'm sure with your eyes you can tell and you can see but i will tell you that if you are feeding on profits we make sure that you are getting a good yellow that will be attractive uh to to to many people who are buying you eggs so uh this is uh um number eleven uh on this and it's a very good yellow right so you'll find that if you are now giving lucent extra vegetables to your birds you can go deeper and it can even get up to 12 18 and now it will be turning towards the orange color of your yolk all right uh so i think that's all about it from us today and i do hope that this is going to help you even we're going to save this on our facebook page on our website so you can revisit and you uh get to learn more about egg production but remember that if you've got any questions on leg layer production egg production please don't do get in touch with us also remember that we are selling point of lay beds at pro feeds you just go and book at eight dollars per bed and you get your point of lay you get your feed and you are good to start on so just in summary let me just remind you that if you want to get it right for your egg production make sure that stocking density is fine make sure that you are feeding all right uh with um and also make sure that you've got enough lighting in the chicken houses and last but not least try as much as you can to minimize stress in your vlog from me brenda candiero and the profits tech team i say happy egg production [Music] you

Channel: Profeeds Zimbabwe

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Id: XEP--2nHahw

Length: 30min 8sec (1808 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 11 2020