When a chicken is vaccinated or exposed to a disease, it responds by producing antibodies against that specific disease organism. Antibodies are proteins responsible for fighting bacteria, virus and other foreign substances that enters the body. What serological monitoring does is to extract serum from chicken blood and estimate the quantity of antibodies present in it. Serological monitoring has 4 benefits:
It helps you to know the right age to vaccinate. You’ll be able to develop a solid vaccination plan rather than guessing. It helps you to evaluate and improve vaccination programs. It helps you to determine the effectiveness of past vaccinations It helps you to monitor the flock for various diseases and you’ll be able to detect impending diseases. It helps you to rapidly detect diseases Personal Experience:
I once took 10 out of my 607 chicks to a lab (AnimalCare Asaba) for serological test. The result showed that
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Coccidiosis is one of the diseases that can cause long-term damage to chicks (reduced weight gain and increase mortality). Prevention was mainly done by giving routine preventive dosage of coccidiosis drugs on day 9-13 and it is repeated every 2-3 weeks. But with the emergence of coccidiosis vaccines, many farmers are turning to it because there is no problem of drug resistance (Update: The vaccine is becoming more and more expensive in Nigeria, so using drugs now seem better).
Advantages of Vaccination with Immucox® It is better than using drugs because there will be no risk of antibiotic resistance Vaccination can offer similar performance (in terms of live weight and feed efficiency) as anticoccidial drugs Flock uniformity is better at the processing plant with no drug residues Types of Coccidiosis Vaccines
Coccidiosis vaccines can be classified into attenuated and non-attenuated vaccines. Attenuated vaccines cannot cause diseases in chickens because
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Flies are usually a problem when the litter is wet or the environment dirty. The life span of houseflies is about 2-4 weeks but within this short period they can multiply very rapidly and infest your animal pen. Female flies can lay 6 batches of 75-200 eggs every 3-4 days. Having a fly control plan in place is important because flies can carry and transmit more than 100 human and animal disease-causing organisms.
Mite Source: http://www2.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef516.asp
Parasitic Wasp Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pasturebuilders/pest-control/
The general methods used to control fly problem include:
1. Preventing Breeding and Killing the Larva
You will have fewer problems of flies if you make your farm unconducive for breeding. You can accomplish this by keeping everywhere clean. A clean environment is the first step to take to control flies. This is because flies like to lay their eggs on dirty places like wet litter, dead animals,
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Rabbits are very wonderful animals. They’re both good as farm animals and as pets. Below are 27 wonderful facts about rabbits.
Rabbits need fiber (hay and grass) for proper functioning of their digestive system. They will die without it. Rabbits are prolific animals. In the wild, they can give birth up to eight times per year. Each litter will have 4-12 kits. Gestation period last for only 30 days! This means that if a rabbit gets pregnant, she will give birth after just 30 days! A rabbit’s teeth grow continuously throughout its life. That’s why they need hays to wear it down. They should also be given tough, fibrous tree branches, leaves and twigs to help wear down the teeth. Safe chewables for rabbits include orange or lemon trees, apple trees, willow, rose canes (remove thorns), maple, ash and pine trees. Wooden chew blocks can help wear down the front
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Geese help and protect other geese that are in trouble. When a geese fall out of the sky due to sickness, wound or when shot, two geese will follow it down. They will stay with it until it dies or is able to fly again. Then they fly out in formation and try to catch the flock. Geese, especially the Chinese geese, can be use to control weeds in plantations, crop farms and waterways. They prefer grasses to most broad-leave plants. They have been used to control weeds for crops like asparagus, berries, mint, tobacco, beets, beans, hops, onions and potato. Their use decline with the introduction of selective herbicides. But as awareness of organic farming spread, their use is increasing. In the tropics, success has been found in kiwi plantations, cotton fields, coffee, banana, plantain and pineapple farms. They are cheap to keep because they are good scavengers.
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Open-sided poultry houses are suitable for tropical climates where the weather is hot. It is also cheaper to construct than poultry houses in cold climate regions where the sides have to be closed and insulated. The main aim of poultry housing is to protect them from the rain, sun, draft and predators. You should always think about these while constructing poultry houses. Poultry house should not be expensive. However, durability, comfort and safety should not be sacrificed at the expense of cost.
Things to consider while selecting a location for your farm:
Don’t site your farm in a place that is prone to flooding. Ask people living around your proposed area whether the land flood during the rainy season. Nearness to the market is also important. Consider the transportation cost of buying feed, drugs, vaccines and selling your products. To prevent airborne diseases, site the farm as far away as
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In tropical countries like Nigeria, hot weather is a common problem where temperature can rise above 30oC. It is a well-known fact that hot weather leads to poor performance in birds. It leads to low feed consumption and high water intake. Layers under hot weather will lay fewer eggs, grow slower, easily get sick (think Newcastle disease), lay small eggs, watery eggs and eggs with thin shells. In broilers, growth rates, feed efficiency, immunity and carcass quality will be negatively affected. In breeders, egg hatchability is negatively affected.
For optimum performance, chickens require a temperature and humidity range of 18-24°C (65-80°F.) and 60-80% relative humidity. For every 1oC lower than 20oC, the bird will consume extra 1.5g of feed per day (5). When temperature rises above 24oC, egg weight and shell quality tend to suffer.
Signs of Heat Stress
Signs of a heat-stressed bird are panting, holding the wings out,
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To produce biogas, you need organic matters like animal manure, animal wastes and plant matters. These organic matters added to the biogas digester are called feedstock. Every organic matter has a carbon-nitrogen (C/N) ratio. For proper biogas production, the C/N ratio of the feedstock mix should be between 20 and 30. Micro-organisms in the biogas digester feed on carbon (as carbohydrates) and nitrogen (as protein, nitrates, ammonia, etc.) to produce biogas. They use carbon as an energy source and nitrogen for building cell structures. These organisms use up carbon about 30 times faster than they use nitrogen so they require a carbon-nitrogen ratio closer to 30. Let’s look at what happens if your feedstock mix does not meet this ratio.
C/N Ratio too Low (Too much nitrogen): If there is too much nitrogen, the carbon will be exhausted first and biogas production will stop. The remaining nitrogen will be lost
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An anaerobic digester – also called a biogas digester or simply a digester – is an air-tight chamber that is used to produce biogas and a rich organic fertilizer called digestate. When you feed organic materials (also called feedstock, raw slurry etc.) like animal manure or plant wastes into an anaerobic digester, it will decompose in the absence of air to produce the two products previously mentioned.
The act of decomposing in the absence of air is called anaerobic digestion or simply digestion. So we can say that the anaerobic digester is digesting the feedstock fed into it. In this article, we’re going to focus only on the popular types of digesters.
Digesters are generally classified into batch-type and continuously-fed digesters base on the type of feeding/loading.
A. Batch-type Digester: In this type of digester, the feedstock is loaded into the digester and left there until anaerobic digestion is complete
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Probiotics are beneficial organisms like bacteria and yeast that are believed to improve health when consumed. In case you don’t know, both plant and animals need these beneficial microbes to stay healthy. In fact, without the teeming good bacteria in the intestine of man and animals, digestion will not occur. The digestive system of man contains about 500 different types of bacteria. Apart from the benefits to plant and animals, you can also use this probiotics to reduce foul odor in animal houses, homes etc. it can also help to free clogged drains. The good bacteria in probiotics eat up bad bacteria that cause smell and diseases. Personally, I have not tried making probiotics so I have to give credit to who credit it due. I got these ideas from Patrick Gentry of TheUnconvensionalFarmer.com and I intend to try it out one day.
Steps to Follow
1. Make a Carbohydrate
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