Zambia Agribusiness Society

This aspect of poultry management must receive constant, close attention. Failure to maintain a high standard of disease prevention will usually result into unhealthy flock. The basis of poultry health management is: 1.     The isolation of the flock from disease causing organisms – quarantine, including fencing, restricting movement in and out, avoiding any attractants of wild birds, avoiding domesticated local and ornamental birds etc. 2.     The destruction of as many harmful organisms as possible – hygiene. Including use of tyre baths that have a strong disinfectant, footbaths with a strong disinfectant, misting the poultry house, portioning the farm into a buffer and clean area, etc. 3.     The use of an appropriate vaccination program – trigger the birds’ immune system. And after vaccination; 4.     The use of appropriate preventive medication programs – for diseases for which there are no vaccines. Avoid dusty ...

Eggs provide many essential elements for the proper functioning of the body as they are particularly rich in protein, vitamins and minerals. Due to their interesting protein (6g/egg) and calorie (70kcal/egg) content, eggs are considered as low-calorie filling allies for your health that can help with weight loss. In addition, they are an excellent source of choline that is essential for the proper brain development, cell growth and maintenance, bone integrity and nerve function. Choline also helps synthesize acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter involved in functions such as memory and muscle control. Because of their high content of vitamins, eggs also protect the eyes (especially due to their content of lutein and zeaxanthin, two carotenoids of the family of vitamin A with antioxidant properties), the immune system (via the action of the selenium, zinc and vitamins B12, A and D), reduce the risk of certain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and depression, and the risk of cardiovascula...

Poultry egg farming is a very profitable business, and many people are making money all over the world by starting layers egg production business. However, to build a successful, sustainable poultry egg farming business, you require sufficient knowledge of how to efficiently keep the layers, good management skills, and a good poultry egg production business plan. 1. Land, Housing and Equipment for Poultry Egg Farming Business The kind of housing you need and the size of the land will depend on the size of your poultry egg farming project. When choosing the location for your poultry egg production business, you have to balance the need for proximity to the market, with the cost of land, labour costs, security, and a good water supply. It is advisable not to locate the poultry egg farming project close to rivers or streams as this may result in the pollution of water by chicken drops during rainfall periods. When you are planning to construct a layers egg chicken house, you have to...

Coccidia symptoms include bloody diarrhoea, watery diarrhoea, ruffled feathers, huddling, weight loss, depression, paleness, lack of appetite and poor weight gain, but chickens may show no symptoms whatsoever. Most birds are affected between the ages of 3 and 5 weeks old. While it can affect any chicken at any age, most chickens are immune to coccidia by the time they're 14 weeks old. Your veterinarian can diagnose coccidiosis by looking for oocysts or protozoan eggs in a bird's faecal sample under a microscope. Treatment: You can treat coccidia outbreaks either with medication prescribed by your veterinarian or with anticoccidial medications available at feed stores and from poultry suppliers. Follow the medication's directions for treating chickens. Prevention: Many chick foods come pre-medicated to prevent coccidiosis outbreaks. When fed to chicks, it helps build the young chicks' immunity to the parasite by allowing some oocysts to make it through. You can prevent ...

Accurate record keeping is essential to monitor the performance and profitability of a flock, and to enable forecasting, programming and cash flow projections to be made. It also serves to provide an early warning of potential problems. The daily records should be on display for each house. At the farm, the following data must be made available to ease the decision making processes at the farm, as some broiler outgrowers may need to present this data too. Daily records include: ·          Mortality and culls by house ·          Daily feed consumption ·          Daily water consumption ·          Water to feed ratio ·          Water treatments ·          Minimum and maximum daily temperatures ·          Number o...

There is a lot of conjecture out there about what is a mulch and how thick should it be? And a whole range of other questions that I will endeavour to answer or set straight in this article. This is of course in my opinion and based on my own experience of over 40 years of growing my own food and fruit on urban blocks of land. Pebbles/Stones : Not mulch heats up during day and radiates warmth into soil sending composting insects deep. Lucerne : Not mulch too open and is full of nitrogen and really is meant as a green manure so good in the compost or turned into the ground. Pea Straw : Not mulch to open just like Lucerne makes a great green manure. Let’s look at what are mulches? Bark/Wood Chips : Great for native gardens, but not so good for edibles. It can leech Nitrogen out of the soil and deposit sap’s and resins which aren’t good for edibles. Sugarcane : This is an adequate mulch for edibles it takes about 12 months to break down. Bamboo Mulch : Like sugar cane also good for edible...

Crop fill assessment Crop fill assessment is one of the measures of determining the comfort of the birds in the brooder. Crop fill assessment is when a poultry attendant or farmer massages the crop of a chick to determine whether the chicks have familiarized with the feed and water. Making a crop fill assessment helps us to judge appetite development in the chicks, health and to avoid a compromised growth rate. It also helps to improve flock growth rate uniformity, and productivity. With a poor crop fill, farmers experience high mortality, poor growth rate, more small and weak chicks. How is it done? You know, when you have just introduced chicks in the brooder, we give them clean water which contains glucose. So they have to go for about an hour without feed, but with good quality water that has glucose. After one hour, we then introduce feed, where we spread super starter pellets on the brooder paper for the chicks to start eating. After about 3 hours in the brooder, ...