Thursday, January 14, 2010

POULTRY RAISING GUIDE

Transfer healthy pullets to the laying area. Light breed is ready to start laying when they are about five months old. Heavy pullets started laying eggs few weeks later. The increase in egg-laying capacity depend in good management and the kind of breed used. It should came from a good strain that has the history of increased laying capacity.

Make a routine work to clean the laying house thoroughly. It should be done 2 weeks before transferring the pullets. The feeders and water troughs are in working condition. Laying hens wanted a clean, well-ventilated and dry, quiet laying house.

Examine every pullet. Use only those healthy ones. Any poorly developed pullets with stunted growth should be culled. Healthy birds are always active and vigorous and healthy, well-developed body with yellow pigmented beaks and shanks.

A laying birds produces eggs over a year. If the profitability of a group of laying birds decreased, then you have to select which of them be taken out in laying area. You have to develop a group of pullets as your alternative replacement so that you are assured that you have a combined supply of table eggs.

It is your responsibility to have a continues flow of water and feeds. They keep on eating during the day. Give your hens plenty of high protein foods including vitamins and minerals. The laying mash should be ready at all times. There are still other kinds of feed that you need in the entire life of your poultry production. You also need all-mash, pellets and crumbles as your alternate feeds.

In feeding, you have to avoid wasting feeds. Do not fill the feeder more than what is needed in order that when you do the next serving it is always fresh and in good appetizing condition. Your feeder should have guard or lip to control the feed to be scratch or beak. Always make sure that the feeder is level with the back of the birds. Construct your layer house defensively with screen wires around to prevent entry of flying birds and rodents to eat feeds outside. Putting windbreaks is important to keep the feed blown away by the winds.

The amount of feed that you refill every day should be in accordance to their needs and their desire to eat. During cold days, laying birds consume less food in a day or if the temperature is hot. In feeding, give your laying flock an energy boosting formulation where they consume only less food during the day. That means a saving for the cost of feeds. A young pullets eat more feeds for their continued growth. Hens will productively lay eggs if the quantity and quality of the feeds are always available to them.

Observe their feeding habits. If a laying hen reduces his normal eating requirements and no good appetite then something is wrong that you have to check and observe. There is a possibility that these laying birds has health problem that should be segregated immediately especially if he showed weakness and less energetic and sickly.

Any remaining stale feeds in the feeder should be remove and replace it with a fresh one especially if it is no longer palatable. Feeding be done twice a day (morning and afternoon). Make water is available to the layers at all times. They need to drink more especially during high temperature. This is also to keep a normal production rate of eggs. Water troughs should always have a continues flow of clean water. Any left-over should be taken out to avoid the growth of molds which is toxic to the birds. Water is used in giving additional nutrients to the laying hen and also for dispensing medication for their protection.

Proper lighting is needed in the poultry house. The recommended height of the bulb from the floor is 2.8 meters. Do culling of unproductive layer every now and then. They should be removed in the laying house and placed separately. Remove those with shrunken combs and wattles, pale and dry body, have dull eyes, thin and low of energy and have poor appetite. Egg collection should be done 3 times a day or as often as possible especially during hot days. Do the sorting according to the standard size. Any dirty eggs should be check and clean for any flaws before bringing to the storage room.

Keep the eggs in a cool room with temperature of 150'C or lower with humidity of 70' degrees. The egg collection troughs always clean to avoid dirtying or have stain embedded to the eggs.

For the project to succeed, it lies on how you done prevention and control of parasites and many diseases. It can only be realized if you as poultry raisers can achieve the proper management. What is important is effective sanitation measures. To ensure your laying pullets protected from diseases, it should be vaccinated. Do a correct feeding, good housing facilities, comfortable locations. Remove all manures and litters. Wash the area, walls, ceiling, floor, equipment, etc. with water and detergents to remove dirt and dust,then use disinfectants . Cleanliness inside and outside the laying area, proper care and other safety measures is needed to prevent infection to spread out to the laying flocks. If it cannot be controlled, then your project is doomed to failure.

In having a poultry production, it is a must to have your own veterinarian who are knowledgeable when it comes to control. His function is more on prevention. Any warning signs of a disease can be prevented and necessary measures is carried out.

DUCK RAISING GUIDE

To start a project, you need 60 square meters pond. Find a place where water is already available and plenty. The dikes must be thicker at the base than the top to avoid erosion.

In digging the pond, the side where to drain the water should be deeper than the other side. The purpose is for easy draining. Maintain water depth of 150 centimeters or less.

Before flowing the pond with water, fertilization with chicken manure is advisable. You can use complete fertilizer in order to promote the growth of algae. Use a khaki campbell as it lays as many as 300 or more per year. The eggs were family large, thick-shelled weighing 75 grams each.

Build a duck house in one side above the water of the pond. Place 15 ducks in a pond. Provides 2 males and 13 females. Build a house of 4 square meters floor area made of bamboo slats. Build swimming pen beside the duck house 4 square meters with 6x6 feet. Use the all-purpose feed formula using soybean meals, leaf meals, copra meals, corm grits, bone meal, shell powder and salt.

You can have an alternate feeds for them, a chopped vegetables, grated coconut or crushed snails, their favorite food. Give water and feeds every morning and afternoon. When they reach 6 months, they starts laying eggs. The layers will continue producing eggs more than 3 years as long as they are manage well.

Early in the morning, the eggs will scatter in the duck house. Gather it without them nearby and clean their feeding trough. Scrap the remaining feeds and wash in the pond. As substitute, raise snails in the pond for your duck have a nutrition protein meal.

Monday, January 11, 2010

MUDFISH BREEDING GUIDE

A mudfish (Channa striata) can be found in swamps, mangrove, rivers, rice fields and lakes. It spawns throughout the year growing from 10 to 37 cm in length. The fish matures sexually when it reaches 24 centimeters. It is a native fish used for food. It has a supra-pharyngeal organs capable for air-breathing.

It can be breed locally. A concrete tank with the measurement of 4x2x2 meters is the ideal size of the tank. The breeding fish should at least 30 centimeters weighing 400 grams or greater (both male and female). A female has a wide girth. Prior to spawning, feed it with small fish or earthworms for the period of 2 weeks before spawning period at the water depth of .03 meters. During spawning it should be increase into .06 meters.

Most often the fish spawn in the early morning. She will spawn at the side or near the surface of the tank. The male and female fish will slowly swim around its other where the male coils around the female for the release of eggs which are to be fertilized. A male breeder can release more or less 5,500 eggs immediately. If the male breeder is large enough then he can make more at one single release of eggs.

The eggs has oil globules in order to float the eggs to the surface of the water. Hatching be done within 3 days. The fry can swim within 5 days. The fry can be feed on zooplankton, rotifiers and copepods, earthworms, maggots or other live feeds. the recommended market size of fingerlings is up to 250 grams. Continues feeding be done by using fine rice bran and ground trash.

Mudfish should be given enough feeds daily to avoid become a predator by feeding on its own kind. To avoid cannibalistic attitude, sorting should be done by sizes regularly. Those with smaller size, should be segregated and put in a separate tank. Same sizes should be grown together.

The disease of mudfish is caused by fungal infection. It can be controlled by maintaining good water quality in the tank. Any diseased fingerlings should be taken out from them.

After reaching the recommended market size,it will be sold live to wet market. Mudfish can survive without water for the maximum of one day. It only need their body to keep moist. Others put the fish in an aquarium big enough to accommodate them to keep them fresh and alive for buyers.

This fish can be cook, roasted, dried and salted. It is a delicacy if cooked with coconut.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

GOAT MILK PRODUCTION GUIDE

Goat milk are rich of many nutrients needed by the human body. As temporary substitute, it can be given to a new baby for few weeks before it can be permanently replaced by breast-feeding. This dairy animal became one of the source of milk for our milk requirement. Goat is not so expensive to raise, for as long as there is enough grass around the farm. It can easily multiply without too much management. It eats almost anything that caught their fancy even flowers in the garden are included.

Goat milk is easily digested in the body compared to other dairy animals. To have a goat production project only need a small starting capital and it can multiply faster. The breeder should weigh 45 kilos or about 10 months. Early breeding will stunt the animal. There should be a complete development of its fetus.

Check any sign of heat. Once a doe is in the stage of estrus, she is willing to receive the buck. It may last for 3 days. It is best to breed the doe in the second day of heat to ensure conception. Gestation period may last 150 days from start of conception to kidding.

There are many instances in the failure of breeding. If the doe will not become pregnant even in three successive heat period, then there is something you have to consider:

-it may have abnormal egg
-it may have disease
-due to hormonal problem
-infertile sperm from the buck
-over fatness of the doe

Avoid malnutrition for your doe. She should be given enough proteins and minerals, vitamins to have a normal reproduction ability. If the doe insist to reproduce, then you have to find another one, a valuable breeding female as your new breeder.

There are many forms of breeding goats. You can select any of them that you think best for certain circumstances after evaluating consideration of its effectiveness to produce. The most commonly type of breeding goat is by cross-breeding. The mating of 2 different breeds. It will increase the size of the offspring, especially if the 2 inbreeds were cross-breeds. It gives an increase vigor to the would-be offspring.

A doe become fretful and emits a low bleat, restless, paw bedding around, a slight mucus discharge appears several days before kidding as a sign of forthcoming birth. After birth, place the doe in a well-lighted, spacious, comfortable pen. Put clean dry straw as her bedding mattress. In an abnormal presentation where a doe cannot deliver a kid without assistance especially if it is in an abnormal position, your help is needed. You have to pull-out it free in a proper position to easily take out the kid.

Feeding the kid especially at birth should be allowed to suck his mother's breast for 2 months in order to obtain high nutrients and antibodies in resisting diseases and act as laxative to clean the digestive system of the newborn kid. The kid should be given salt and water.

Then start weaning the kid. Use concentrate feed by directly rubbing the feed to his mouth in feeding for 2 months. Allow the kid to nibble grass around one month.

How to do the milking?

-Wash your hands with soap. You need plenty of water. Wash the udders with clean warm water. Dry them with a clean cloth. Dry your hands also.

-Close your thumb and first finger around the teat so that milk will not go back to the udder. Close the second finger to squirt the milk out. The first squirt must be discarded as it is not clean.

-Close the 3rd finger. Put a steady pressure. Do not jerk the teat down. Close the little finger and squeeze the entire hand until the milk comes out.

-Release the pressure of your hand on the teat and open your fingers so that the teat can fill up again. Repeat the process. Continue doing alternately with the other hand on the other teat until only a very few little milk comes out.

In feeding the doe, it should be allowed to access in good pasture. Give roughage and concentrate.

In feeding the buck, maintains a good pastures. Include concentrate to his food. Give shelled corn, green feeds from the pasture. Give a little amount of copra meal for protein. Give table salt, water and oyster shell powder and grains.

In the production of milk, you should select a numbers of good breeders (buck and doe) for your continues supply of milk. Any inability for a doe to produce enough milk should be replace with another that can produce more milk that has good composition and in best milk-type class.