New concept of management in laying hens

Everything is regular, and the raising and management of laying hens is very important.

I remember that I had discussed the raising of laying hens in Shijiazhuang area with my colleagues before. The cost of laying hens in this area may be the lowest in China; accordingly, the feeding quality of laying hens is generally not high. However, as farmers take the elimination of chickens as one of the main business indicators, and integrate well with the market, they are often able to dispose of knockout chickens when the market price is high, rather than simply taking egg production as the only management index. That is, to measure the income of each laying hen, including eggs and knockout chickens, so that the laying hens become both meat and eggs.

The industry that has always been strong and bullish is only found in the sky. It doesn't matter if the environment is bad, as long as you are more profitable than your competitors.

Why do layer practitioners raise laying hens? It is nothing more than laying eggs to make money (output) by feeding feed (input), that is to say, laying hens are just the carrier of these people's business.

Han Wei Group in Dalian is a famous poultry raising enterprise in China. At present, the scale of laying hens raised by this enterprise is the largest in China. Purely from the feeding technology, such a large-scale farm, the production level is quite good, can make money, and how much money, basically depends on the management rather than breeding technology. In the spring and summer of 2005, the author and Cheng Liangyu, the boss of Shenyang Hongyun Feed Factory, visited some farmers of Xinmin and learned that in 2004, each of these layers could earn 260.28 yuan, while the few could only earn 120.16 yuan. Of course, there were only a handful of farmers who made more money. It can be seen that for the raising of laying hens, while paying attention to the feeding technology, we also need to make efforts in management and learn to predict and avoid market risks, which is the best policy.

Everything has regularity, the following author from four aspects of laying hens also need to be managed to explain.

1 choose high-quality chicks

This point of view has basically been accepted by the industry, and it has also made a poultry breeding enterprise like Yukou. Breeder chicken breeders all know that the quality of chickens is very important to the production performance of laying hens, but how many chickens are tested for pullorum and mycoplasma? How many of them all use qualified vaccines? In fact, there are few enterprises in the industry that can produce high-quality breeding eggs and chicks. However, from the point of view of laying hen breeders, if they want to pay a few cents more on chickens, some people will feel that it is not worth it, although the value of good chicks is far from being bought by the price difference of a few cents, but they can't see or believe this potential gap.

The acceptance of the concept does not mean that it will be implemented in the operation, so, of course, the above ideas need to be constantly publicized, and laying hen breeders should also learn to calculate long-term accounts and make correct choices through comparison so as to avoid unnecessary waste.

(2) attach importance to the quality of breeding chickens

In Holland Youli Company, 5-week-old body weight and 16-week evenness are the most important production indexes of laying hens in breeding period. Many people have joked that this is called 35 days for life. According to the author's experience, as long as the choice of high-quality feed can meet this requirement. Considering the input of the whole breeding period, the amount of feed in the first 5 weeks should account for 10% of the feed consumption in the whole growing period.

The author believes that when raising chicks, it is necessary to discuss the theoretical feeding density at present, because the space occupied by chicks is relatively small, and the density can be reduced if the investment is small, and the result is to increase the body weight of chicks. In the case of an adequate supply of feed and drinking water, this is just a little more labor and a few more trays and drinking water tanks.

Table 1 is the result of statistical analysis of the production index data of millions of white shell laying hens.

Table 1 correlation between breeding quality and production performance of white shell laying hens

Correlation coefficient

5-week body weight

10-week body weight

16-week weight

16-week evenness

(50% of the first production age)

Sexual maturation

(egg laying rate per day for 60-72 weeks)

Egg laying persistence

60-week survival rate

72-week survival rate

(number of eggs laid by chickens in the house)

Total number of eggs laid in 60 weeks

The number of eggs laid in 60 to 72 weeks

Total number of eggs laid in 72 weeks

* 0.63

* 0.82

* 0.71

* 0.65

* 0.83

* 0.94

* 0.93

0.59

0

0

0

0.3

0

0

0.39

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0.46

0.4

0.61

0.54

0.6

* 0.72

Data source: Holland Youli Company.

The main results are as follows: (1) in the early growth stage, the growth of digestive system is faster than that of body. Chicks with higher body weight within 5 weeks of age have better internal organs-lungs, heart, liver, stomach and intestines account for a higher proportion of body weight.

According to the production performance of the whole cycle, the correlation between 5-week-old body weight and 72-week total egg production was 0.93, with 60-week survival rate was 0.71, with 72-week survival rate was 0.65, and with egg persistence for 60-72 weeks only daily laying rate was 0.82. The correlation between 16-week evenness and 72-week total egg production was 0.72. However, the correlation between 10-week-old body weight, 16-week body weight and corresponding production indexes did not exist or was very low. Generally speaking, if the weight is high in the early stage of 5 weeks old, the production performance of the whole egg laying cycle is also higher.

(2) at the age of 16 weeks, the evenness was high, which indicated that the reproductive system of chicks developed well, including the growth of ovaries and fallopian tubes.

(3) the use of a new type of layer trough can keep the beak, and the broken beak seriously affects the body weight, which is difficult to recover within a week. The current layer breeding pursues miniaturization, which reduces the need for maintenance, but at the same time reduces the feed intake of chicks, and it is difficult to gain weight when the feed energy value is low. This requires that the quality of feed must be improved accordingly. As the breeding hens of small-scale farmers are raised in non-closed sheds, the light is not easy to control, resulting in differences in hormone changes and disunity of sexual maturity of laying hens, so there will be some bad habits. The author believes that there is more room for improvement in this area, and it can be achieved with very little investment.

Table 2 shows the actual production statistics of Dalian Hanwei Chicken Farm. It can be seen from the table that the egg production of group 3 and 4 with high body weight is higher than that of group 1 and 2, the feed conversion rate is reduced by 0.24, and the death rate is much lower. It can be seen that the benefits of standard weight are at least 10 yuan for a chicken.

Because of their good health and strong metabolic function, the utilization and transformation ability of nutrients in well-developed laying hens are stronger than those in poor development, which is shown in the production performance, that is, the feed conversion rate, egg production rate and total egg production are all much higher. In a word, the breeding goal of back-up laying hens is to breed chickens whose production performance is consistent with their genetic potential.

Table 2 relationship between standard body weight and production performance

Group

The breeding period is 0-18 weeks

The laying period is 19-72 weeks

18-week body weight / g

18-week standard weight

Weight difference / g

Evenness /%

The first day of production

Death rate /%

Average egg weight / g

Egg production / kg

FCR

More than 80% laying rate

Maintenance time / d

one

two

Average

three

four

Average

Difference

1 170

1 199

1 184.5

1 284

1 300

1 292

107.5

1 280

1 280

1 280

1 280

-110

-81

-95.5

four

twenty

twelve

eighty-one

eighty

80.5

eighty-one

81.7

81.35

0.85

one hundred and forty five

one hundred and fifty

one hundred and forty seven

one hundred and forty three

one hundred and forty two

one hundred and forty three

-5

22.76

22.64

22.7

14.18

14.04

14.11

-8.59

58.95

58.75

58.85

61.29

62.91

62.10

3.25

13.53

13.12

13.32

15.7

15.9

15.8

2.48

2.66

2.68

2.67

2.47

2.39

2.43

-0.24

eleven

fifty-four

47.5

one hundred and eighteen

one hundred and thirty one

1245

seventy-seven

(3) pay attention to the feeding and management of the expected delivery period.

During this period, great changes have taken place in the body of laying hens: the liver is doubled and protein synthesis is strengthened to prepare for high-intensity egg laying after laying; the reproductive systems such as ovaries and fallopian tubes are further developed, so that very small ovaries can eliminate large yolks. At the same time, due to the influence of hormones, the function of laying hens also has great changes, such as fragile immunity, prone to fallopian tube infection, causing peritoneal inflammation and so on.

Therefore, breeders before laying hens, do not be afraid to invest, the selection of pre-production egg feed, energy and protein levels should be a little higher, due to the low feed intake during this period, if the feed quality is not improved, it is difficult to meet the needs of laying hens. In the latest Highland Brown Management Manual, the standard of crude protein content in its diet is 20%, which is higher than that of chicks, while its energy is flat. This change should be noticed.

4 feeding and management during the laying period

During the laying period, the body weight of laying hens increased rapidly and gained 500g in a few weeks, accounting for 4% of the total body weight of eliminated hens. At the same time, the laying rate is also growing rapidly. in general, the laying rate will rise quickly from 50% to 95% in 21th and 25th weeks. Accordingly, the amount of food intake and drinking water are also increasing rapidly. Of course, the egg weight also increases very quickly.

With regard to the feeding of laying hens during the laying period, the author believes that most people do not pay enough attention to the details. For example, because the density of laying hens is very high among domestic animals, ventilation is a very important factor during the laying period. Because the metabolic intensity of laying hens is very high, so they need a lot of oxygen. But many farmers do not pay enough attention to this problem, especially in the north, because the winter is long and cold, in order to keep warm, many farmers "simply" ignore this problem. In the vast majority of henhouses, once inside, people feel breathless. In such an environment, how can laying hens have good production performance and health? Big things should start from small things, ventilation is undoubtedly a small problem that farmers need to pay special attention to.

In a laying farm, the cost of laying eggs (output) and feed is basically balanced when the laying rate reaches about 70%. Before that, it has always been the input stage. However, the sum of the income and manure of knockout chickens is not worth the input before the 70% laying rate; it is estimated that there is a difference of about 4 to 6 yuan per chicken, which is obviously made up by the total egg production of the chicken. Good chicken farmers, the average 20kg per chicken laying eggs, poor only 12kg, resulting in a difference in the cost of eggs per kilogram can reach 0.20 yuan, which is the reason for the difference in profitability of different chicken farmers.

To sum up, after grasping several key links, the output can increase a lot when the total input increases slightly. The author believes that although there is still the shadow of bird flu, but as long as attention and good management, it can be more profitable than competitors, correspondingly, can have an advantage in the competition. At the same time, it can also get a head start in the next round of market opportunities.

Source: Jin Bang Wei laying hen breeding expert http://www.xmvet.com