Chicken farming guide for beginners: Everything you need to know before starting
Poultry farming is usually a very profitable business throughout the world. Chicken farming is one of the most successful sectors in the farming arena, whether you are raising broiler chickens, layers (egg-laying chickens) of free-range chickens in your backyard.
For those who are interested in starting a small-scale chicken farm, the first step is to identify which part of the industry they want to grow in. One can either grow day-old chicks to sell them to other farmers or, you could hatch eggs and sell them to large companies and other aspiring small farms, or you could simply sell chicken meat to consumers or supply butcheries, takeaways, restaurants, etc.
In the chicken farming industry, there are three main sectors: Layers - which are chickens bred and raised to produce eggs, or broilers - chickens raised and bred to be slaughtered and finally free-range chickens which are raised usually in the backyard, foraging on their own and getting minimal supplement feed from the farmer, but growing slowly in the process.
Broilers are young male and female chickens raised specifically for meat. They grow from a hatch weight of 40g to a weight of approximately 1.5 to 2kg within 6 weeks only.
Layers are hens used for commercial egg production and then slaughtered for meat when they become off-layers, a term used to refer to adult chickens that have permanently stopped laying. Layer chickens are raised from one day old chicks, although you can also buy pullets, which are semi-adult chickens that are just about to start laying eggs. Layer chickens usually start laying eggs at the age of 18 to 19 weeks and continue until they are 72 to 78 weeks of age.
Free-range chickens are usually more like broilers and layers combined. They are raised for meat production as well as for egg production and the technical term for that is dual purpose chickens. The meat for free-range chickens is so delicious, perfect for stewing and free-range chickens have a special market demand but then, their growth is very slow, unlike the broilers that grow very fast. Free-range chickens can survive in many environments, are very hardy, rarely fall sick, are capable of looking for their own feed and some of the breeds have the capacity to hatch their eggs and greatly take care of their young ones.
By deciding to go through this tutorial, you have already done a great job towards properly planning for your chicken farming project, and I promise NOT to disappoint you on that. So do keep glued to your screen, you have a lot more to learn.
Please kindly support Best Farming Tips Youtube channel by making a Paypal donation of any amount on https://paypal.me/bestfarmingtips
For more farming tips and articles, kindly visit my website https://www.bestfarmingtips.com
Subscribe to Best Farming Tips Youtube Channel here: / @bestfarmingtips