- A successful home chicken flock requires good breeding stock combined with careful management, disease control and a feeding program adequate for the production or growth level expected for the flock.
Why Have a Small Flock?
A small flock offers the convenience of having fresh eggs or poultry meat right at home and the possible reduced costs of production incurred by using available housing and farm feedstuffs.
Poultry also can be kept as a hobby or as a learning experience for 4-H or FFA projects. Purebred poultry can be exhibited at fairs and poultry shows. There is also the pleasure of observing different shapes and colors in a home poultry flock. Purebred poultry may include chickens (large fowl and bantams), geese, ducks, turkeys, game birds and guineas. Bantams are ideal for those who have only a small space available to keep chickens.
Before You Plan a Flock
Some local, county, State and even Federal zoning and environmental regulations prohibit poultry flocks. Zoning regulations are usually specific about animals and environmental considerations, such as flies, odor and noise. Check with your county Extension agent or representatives of government agencies for approval before planning a flock. Also consider the proximity of your neighbors and their opinions.
Home flocks, even small ones, require water, food and daily care including weekends, vacations and holidays. The time and effort required for this care should be considered in weighing your desire for a home flock against other possible uses of your time and labor.
What Kind of Chicken?
There are two basic choices in the type of poultry to keep: a strain bred primarily for egg production or one that is bred for meat production.
Commercially available White Leghorn strains produce approximately 250 to 300 white eggs each year on a small amount of feed. Sex-linked hens, which are a little larger than Leghorns and lay brown eggs, produce approximately 180 to 240 eggs per year. Egg- producing stock can be bought as day-old chicks or as started pullets at 18 to 22 weeks of age. Yearling hens (hens with 1 year of production) can be purchased from a commercial egg flock.
The most economical meat production comes from commercial broiler-type birds, which can be used for broiler, roaster and capon production. These meat birds typically produce few eggs.
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