By FarmersJoint in Livestock FarmingEgg eating is a frustrating habit that can spread quickly among layers once it begins. Fortunately, there are proven steps farmers can take to prevent or stop this problem.
1. Reduce Stress and Overcrowding
a. Overcrowding increases stress, aggression, and egg pecking. b. Provide at least 1.5–2 square feet of floor space per bird to keep them comfortable.
2. Feed Them Properly
a. Nutrient deficiencies, especially calcium, often trigger egg eating. b. A laying hen needs about 4–4.5 g of calcium daily. c. Provide calcium sources such as limestone, dicalcium phosphate, crushed/burnt oyster shells, snail shells, or egg shells in a separate feeder. d. Ensure hens receive adequate Vitamin D, which aids calcium absorption. e. Include bone meal in rations to supply both calcium and phosphorus for stronger shells. f. Avoid underfeeding — each layer needs about 110–120 g of balanced feed daily.
Read: Feed Consumption
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By FarmersJoint in Crop and PlantationHave you heard of aquaponics before? It is a modern farming system that combines fish farming (aquaculture) with growing crops without soil (hydroponics). In simple terms, you raise fish in a tank and use their waste as fertilizer for plants. The plants, in return, clean the water, which goes back to the fish.
This creates a natural cycle where both the fish and crops benefit each other.
How It Works
Fish Tank: You keep fish like catfish or tilapia in water.
Fish Waste: As the fish eat and grow, they produce waste in the water.
Grow Beds: The water carrying the waste is pumped into grow beds where crops are planted in gravel or other media.
Bacteria Action: Helpful bacteria change the fish waste into nutrients that plants can use.
Clean Water: The plants absorb the nutrients, and the clean water flows back to the fish tank.
This
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By FarmersJoint in Livestock Farming 
Soybeans hull is a good energy source for ruminants. It can replace or supplement other more expensive energy sources like maize, millet etc. Below are some important facts about soyhulls:
1. Depending upon price and availability, soybeans hull can replace some (most or all) of the hay or grain in the diets of sheep, goats, and other livestock.
2. It is very good to feed soyhulls to ruminants that are consuming low to moderate quality forages. It will help boost their growth rate by as much as 80%.
3. for small ruminants (sheep and goats), there are two primary uses of soyhulls:
i. as an energy supplement for animals consuming low to moderate quality forage. This is the most common use for soyhulls. In this case it can replace corn as an energy source on a one-to-one basis (1kg corn can be replaced by 1kg soyhull).
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By FarmersJoint in Livestock Farming 
Do you have pregnant sheep, goats or cows that fall sick before or after delivery? Saliva drips out of their mouth, they stop defecating or urinating, they find it difficult to stand or walk. The cause might be milk fever. Read to find out more.
Milk fever or hypocalcemia arises when animals are unable to mobilise sufficient calcium from the bones or diet when there is high demand for calcium, leading to low blood calcium level. Calcium is in high demand during late pregnancy and some days after birthing. For cows, milk fever mainly occur after birth but for goats and sheep it mainly occur before birth, during late pregnancy period (i.e. 6 weeks before birthing). Occurrence after birth isn’t common in sheep and goats.
Generally, milk fever can occur at any time from 6 weeks before to 10 weeks after birthing. Milk fever can also occur when certain compounds
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By FarmersJoint in Livestock Farming 
Urea molasses mineral block is a cheap supplemental block that is used to increase the nutritional qualities of low-quality feeds for ruminants (goats, sheep and cattle). It is a good source of protein, energy and minerals. Low quality feeds are cheap and abundant. Few examples include crop residues like wheat and rice straw, maize and sorghum stovers, beans plant and dry grasses. They are low in protein, vitamins, minerals and are hard to digest. Feeding these to ruminants result in sluggish growth, delayed maturation, longer pregnancy interval, poor milk yield etc.
But when you combine low quality feeds and UMMB, there will be increase in feed digestibility by up to 20 percent, increase in growth rate and increased feed intake by 25 to 30 percent. With UMMB, poor farmers don’t have to spend money on costly feeds like maize, soybeans meal, groundnut cake etc.
How to Make Urea Molasses Mineral
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By FarmersJoint in Livestock Farming 
If you are not careful, you will loose many newborn piglets before they are separated from their mother at 4 to 6 weeks of age. The guide below will help prevent or minimize pre-weaning death.
Piglets soundly asleep
During Birth: Baby pigs can be born dead. This may be due to diseases or lack of oxygen when the birth period is long. Long birth period can be caused by large number of piglets or high birth weight. Large number of piglets can also increase the number of piglets born weak. These weak piglets may then be more likely to starve, become crushed by their mother, or diseased.
If you want to reduce pre weaning mortality, you have to observe them as often as possible. Look out for the weak ones and help them to drink their mother’s milk.
Thermal Stress: Unlike many other animals, baby pigs don’t possess mechanisms
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By FarmersJoint in Livestock Farming 
Vaccines help to prevent or minimize the impact of viral diseases. They are important because viral diseases cannot be treated with drugs. They can only be prevented with vaccines. If a poultry farmer is not careful to follow certain rules, the vaccine he administer will fail to protect his birds from viral diseases. And when this happens, many farmers end up blaming the vaccine manufacturers.
Vaccines can be given to birds through drinking water, by injection, eye drop, spray etc. The most common route for broiler is via drinking water and wing web puncture (for fowlpox vaccine). For egg layers it is via drinking water, wing web puncture (for fowlpox vaccine) and injections. You can get sample vaccination/medication plans for layers and broiler below:
Vaccination/Medication Plan for Layers Vaccination/Medication Plan for Broilers
Below are rules that will help you prevent vaccine failure:
1. Vaccinate healthy birds
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By FarmersJoint in Livestock Farming 
Below is broiler medication and vaccination chart you can follow. Vaccinating your birds against viral diseases is very important because viral diseases are incurable. Vaccination will help to prevent or reduce the severity of viral diseases.
Medication on the other hand, is used to treat or prevent diseases caused by bacteria, fungi or protozoa. But if you follow good biosecurity measures, you can reduce the amount of medication you give.
Here goes the chart:
Day 1: Marek vaccine: This is usually given to the chicks at the hatchery.
On getting to your brooding pen, give them multivitamins and minerals in water. Provide broiler starter feed in enough feeder such that all of them can feed at the same time without struggle.
Day 2-4: Multivitamins and antibiotics. Recommended antibiotics include …..
Day 5: Gumboro vaccine via drinking water.
Day 7: Lasota for Newcastle disease
Day 10-12: Anti-coccidiosis drugs and
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By FarmersJoint in Poultry 
Litter beetles are those dark beetles you find in poultry houses, most especially in deep litter houses. They normally hide under everything – drinkers, feeders, stones, laying boxes that are on the floor, along the walls etc. In my early days of raising chickens, I totally ignore these beetles because I thought they were harmless. But are they harmless? They are VERY harmful!
Litter beetles
Litter beetles eat chicken feed, their larvae bore into insulations, woods etc, they climb into poultry feathers and bite them, sometimes killing weakened chickens and worst of all, they can carry a lot of poultry diseases!
The scientific name for these little destroyers is Alphitobius diaperinus. Locally, they can also be called darkling beetles, lesser mealworm, black beetles etc. They cause more problems in houses where the litter is allowed to build up without any effective control program in place.
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By FarmersJoint in Livestock FarmingWhen it comes to ruminant farming, Nigeria still practice the archaic system of nomadic grazing and cut-and-carry system from bushes. In countries like Kenya, livestock farmers grow grass to feed their animals. Many Nigerians may find this laughable but it is far better than what we’re used to.
Growing your own grass means that you are sure that feed supply will be enough to meet your animals’ need. It is also hygienic. When I was young, we had some goats and I was the one that feed them. I normally went to bushes to cut grass. One thing that worried me so much is the eye-sores I normally encounter. I would always have to cope with the sight of human feces here and there. In fact, that was the main thing that discouraged me from goat farming.
Cattle grazing close to farmlands
Now that I have discovered
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