Zambia Agribusiness Society

Poultry refers to birds that are kept by man for economic reasons of obtaining meat, eggs and other products and also for aesthetic or social reasons. The most reared type of poultry is the chicken. Systems of Poultry Production In poultry production, there are several ways of keeping poultry. The system of poultry production adopted will depend on a number of factors, among them: 1.     Finances 2.     Knowledge of the poultry business 3.     Types of birds 4.     Land availability and location of the farm Traditional Production or Extensive system This is the most common system. As such, this is the only system we are going to look at. Under this system, we have: 1.     Pastured poultry 2.     Semi-intensive 3.     Yard and crop 4.     Innovative 5.     Free-range a. Pastured Poultry Term used to describe a modification of free-range. A field pen is used where the grazing area and bird density are strictly controlled. Birds are pastured in floorless pens a

Also called heart attack, sudden death syndrome, acute death syndrome, flip-over disease, acute heart failure. This disease/problem is common in commercial “broilers” because of high rate of growth and extra metabolic rate. Symptoms No previous symptoms. It’s a kind of situation where, you were just in the poultry house a few moments ago and every bird was very much OK, just to be surprised by unusual mortality after a few minutes....even when you had checked, everything was OK! We may term this as sudden death! Sudden death syndrome can happen between day 3 up to when a bird grows to selling time. Reason of sudden death syndrome (heart attack) in broilers. High-calorie feed we are giving to commercial broilers. Metabolic rate of broiler bird become high and an electrolyte imbalance can lead to the problem. In hot areas, where high temperature is too high and bird has to breath with high rate also increase the metabolic rate and when bird’s body is not able to control

When setting up a poultry farm, housing is one of the most important factors to be considered. Deep litter system and battery cage system are the major types of housing for poultry birds. Battery cage system is commonly used due to some added advantages but I will show you how to use a deep litter system to maximize your profit better than battery cage system. What is a deep litter system? Deep litter system is an indigenous system of raising chickens whereby, chickens are raised on the floor covered with some specific types of material called beddings or litter materials to prevent the direct contact of the birds and the bare floor. This system of keeping poultry birds is, undoubtedly, the cheapest but requires some management practices most farmers find or let me say assume are not too important. Why poultry farmers fail in the deep litter system If you have adopted the deep litter system and you could not get your desired result, I can tell you it is because of one or so