The Main Types and Requirements For Chicken Waterers

Eating fresh eggs and chicken meat grown in our own yard every day – more and more people are thinking about raising chickens to provide their family with such nutritional conditions. Achieving high poultry productivity is impossible without observing the requirements for drinking and feeding chickens. There should always be clean drinking water in the cage or house. The most convenient to use are homemade automatic chicken waterers or purchased at a store.

The rate of water that a chicken should consume depends on many factors: the temperature of the air, the age of the bird, and the feed consumed. On average, each individual should drink at least half a liter of water to exclude the possibility of dehydration.

Chicken Waterer Requirements

A quality drinker for laying hens or broilers must meet certain requirements:

  1. Ease of use. The tank used for watering birds should be easily filled, if possible automatically from the water supply. Replacing water should also not be a problem for poultry farmers.
  2. Stability and durability. Drinking bowls located in cages and houses should be strong enough to withstand possible attacks of birds. An inverted or broken drinker will not only lead to excessive dampness, but it will also leave the entire population of chickens without water.
  3. Ensuring the purity of water. Pure water is the key to bird health. In open containers, various microorganisms, which can be carriers of infections, start up faster. Chickens can bathe in water or contaminate it with their droppings. Therefore, the main capacity of the drinking bowl should be as isolated as possible from external influences.
  4. Security. It is desirable that drinking bowls were made of high-quality plastic. Capacities made from metal, when interacting with certain medications, can release harmful chemical compounds. In homemade chicken drinkers, all edges must be carefully crafted so that the birds do not get hurt.

Waterer Classification

The whole variety of drinking bowls for birds can be divided into the following groups:

  • nipple;
  • cup;
  • vacuum;
  • siphon;
  • simple drinking containers.

Enamelled and galvanized pots and buckets, or plastic bowls, are usually used as the simplest drinkers.

True, such tanks have a whole bunch of disadvantages. Firstly, the water will have to be changed several times a day, because it will be contaminated with chicken droppings and garbage. Secondly, sitting on a bucket or basin, the chicken can easily tip them over.

It is advisable to use small open water bowls only for drinking chickens, but watch carefully so that the water does not spill out. Wet chicks may become cold and die.

For a small number of chickens (about a dozen) it is beneficial to use a siphon drinker. It consists of a glass with a siphon system and a tray where water enters. Siphon drinkers can be floor, mounted and leg-mounted.

A very similar design has a vacuum drinking bowl. The water level in the pan will replenish as it empties. Atmospheric pressure will prevent liquid from pouring out of the glass. An important condition for the operation of the vacuum drinking bowl is that the water level in the pan should be above the lower edge of the water tank.

A cup or nipple drinker for chickens will help automate the process of distributing water to the chicken coop. The first is a small container connected via a hose to a tank of water or water supply. Water is supplied through a hose to a bowl, which drops down under the pressure of water and closes the hole.

Nipple drinking systems are very popular among US poultry farmers. It is convenient to use such a drinking bowl for both chicks and adult birds. For chickens and broilers put nipples that open from movement in any direction, and nipples for laying hens react only to the movement of the pin up and down. For more economical water consumption, drop eliminators are installed under the nipples.

The Benefits and Harms of Quail Eggs

Many people know about the benefits of quail eggs. But not everyone knows how to take this useful product, as well as the dangers of quail eggs.
A quail is a small bird known for laying small eggs in a speck. The eggs are really small. When compared with chicken, they are approximately 5 times smaller.
the weight of one egg is about 10 – 12 g, and the weight of a chicken egg is somewhere in the range of 50 – 60 g.

Benefit

The main thing you should immediately pay attention to is that quail eggs never have salmonella, because the body temperature of the bird is higher than 40 degrees, and at this temperature microorganisms do not survive. This means the following: quail eggs can be eaten raw without fear.

In addition, poultry farms do not need to use antibiotics or other drugs to prevent epidemics. Therefore, this product can be considered environmentally friendly.

If quail eggs are subjected to heat treatment, some of the nutrients are reduced. Therefore, this product is best consumed raw. Continue reading “The Benefits and Harms of Quail Eggs”

Features of Treatment of Turkeys, and Care for Them – What Difference With Other Poultry

In fact, the difficulty of breeding turkeys is in most cases exaggerated. If you observe all the subtleties of growing small turkey poults and know the conditions in which turkeys like to live, keeping this bird will not cause you any particular problems.

DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF TURKEY CONTENT

Having listened to many flattering reviews about turkey meat and its benefits, many farmers are wondering if they should raise this large poultry. We managed to cope with chickens, with geese too – which means that there should not be any special problems with turkeys. Is it so?

In many ways, the conditions for keeping turkeys are similar to the contents of another poultry, there are only some features that must be taken into account in order to achieve an excellent result and get enough eggs, fluff and meat from these birds.

A close dark shed for keeping turkeys will not work – make sure that the house is spacious enough for free bird walks. Walking turkeys is simply necessary because of the high tendency to obesity. It is recommended that you calculate the area of ​​the house so that each bird has about one and a half square meters of floor.

The room for the birds must be dry, warm, light (the dark room of the turkeys is depressing) and ventilated, but do not allow drafts, because of which the turkeys can easily catch a cold. This is especially true for small turkey poults – from dampness and cold age they can die a whole brood.

The maintenance of turkeys in winter is complicated only by the fact that the birds will need to be protected from sharp temperature fluctuations and at the same time from time to time to air the room, preferably in warm, calm weather. Try to maintain a temperature of +20 degrees in the house in the summer and -5 degrees in the winter. Turkeys easily tolerate frosts only up to -15-20 degrees, but turkeys are carried best when the temperature in the house is +5 degrees.

Together with chickens and other poultry, the maintenance of turkeys and small turkey poults is categorically not recommended, otherwise they will easily become infected with unpleasant diseases that can be fatal to a susceptible organism of turkeys.

Another distinguishing feature of keeping turkeys is that they like to fly higher and relax on the roof of a barn or garage. In addition, in the summer they like to feed on fresh herbs on pastures.

FEATURES OF CARING FOR TURKEYS

Unlike chickens, turkeys require a higher indoor temperature in the first days of life (if they are not raised under a brood), special feeding and great care. Features of growing turkey poults are covered in a separate article on our website.

Turkeys from the rest of the poultry differ sharply expressed instinct of a brood hen. Under natural conditions, this quality was necessary for the survival of turkey poults, but with domestic breeding of turkeys it only interferes – the turkey carries fewer eggs, refuses food and rapidly loses weight. Farmers have to take special measures to force the hen to leave the nest:

  • send bright light to the nest;
  • plant an active male in a turkey;
  • lower the temperature;
  • remove the turkey from the nest and send it for walking.

Proper care of turkeys necessarily includes a special diet in accordance with the age of the turkeys. Feeding turkeys is different from feeding the rest of poultry. For example, turkeys require a large number of animal proteins during growth, and to ensure good egg production of turkeys, it is necessary to ensure that a sufficient amount of vitamins enters their body with food.

Much depends on how to care for turkeys, how to feed them, in what conditions they are: the palatability of meat, egg production and the quality of eggs, the health of adult turkeys and small turkeys. If you follow the general rules for keeping turkeys, you will easily succeed in breeding them.

Poultry Care

Experienced owners know that their productivity and the quality of the resulting product depend on the proper care of poultry. There are many opinions about how you still need to care for poultry, but which ones are really worth taking into account? Unfortunately, at the moment there is no single answer – everyone takes care of the bird in its own way. But at the same time, different approaches have some common features.

For example, a prerequisite is to keep the bird clean and warm, regardless of breed and age, and you need to ensure that the birds are always full, but in moderation (obesity does not bode well). Also, special attention should be paid to compliance with the regime, since the viability and reproduction of poultry directly depends on this.

Among the measures for the care of poultry is also prevention: it is necessary to exclude the possibility of penetration of rodents into the chicken coop by closing holes, as well as isolating sick individuals from healthy chickens.

Sunlight is also important (or artificial lighting as an alternative). It is necessary to ensure that the duration of daylight hours is optimal to ensure normal development and high productivity of the bird. Particular attention should be paid to the duration of daylight hours of poultry in winter, since due to the natural reduction of daylight hours in winter, birds do not have time to receive a daily feed intake. Naturally, this adversely affects their productivity. Installation and use of additional lighting should be carried out depending on the season.

At the same time, an important factor is the brightness of the lighting, sudden changes which are unacceptable. Firstly, it can scare the bird and adversely affect its productivity. Secondly, a sharp turn-off of the light does not allow the poultry to prepare for sleep, climbing to the designated place.

In addition, there are separate recommendations for different types of content, as well as breeds and age of poultry. For example, caring for chickens involves constant monitoring of the temperature and humidity of the room in which they are kept. Also, the diet of chickens should be different from the diet of adult hens and ensure that they receive all the substances necessary for the normal development and growth. In this case, it is desirable to take into account the characteristics of the breed using the food recommended by specialists.

Of course, this is only a small part of what can be said about the proper care of poultry. But even with this minimum, you can significantly increase the productivity of poultry.