LED lighting is used during the first two weeks to increase feed intake.Īt three weeks, the chicks are moved to the production houses, which were once the stables. This set-up draws relatively little electricity and disseminates heat evenly throughout the space. She uses only limited red heating lamps and provides further warmth when necessary with an overhead panel heater, designed by Steyn. Loock then adds vitamin packs for the first few days and ensures the chicks do not fall into the fountains. Milled wheat straw is added for bedding.Ĭhicks are fed starter mash ad lib and have access to water fountains. It is rested for two weeks after the previous batch of chicks to prevent the spread of disease or infection. On arrival at the smallholding, the birds are placed in the chick house, a converted garage, which is disinfected with Virukill. She has little time to count them but runs her fingers through the chicks to check for any dead or obviously unwell birds.Īt this stage, they can still be refunded or replaced. The birds, boxed in four batches of 100, are fetched from central collection points in Bloemfontein. These are reared for between six and seven weeks before being taken to a nearby abattoir for slaughter. Loock is now at the stage where she receives 400 chicks a week from reputable suppliers. This phase of the business, however, was a disaster: her system was simply not geared yet to handle so many birds and she started suffering increasingly high mortality rates.
Broiler poultry farm trial#
“So I ended up having to learn the hard way: by trial and error.”īy the middle of last year, she had scaled up production to about 1 000 chicks a week. She discovered that this was not financially possible for a small-scale producer, who has to make do with less.
Broiler poultry farm how to#
When she tried researching on the Internet or speaking to other farmers, all she could find was evidence of their successes, or how to set up optimal rearing facilities. Loock kicked off her enterprise when she bought her first batch of 200 Ross 308 day-old chicks in September 2017.Īn immediate challenge was that nobody was willing to share lessons from their own failures. The couple have learnt many lessons over the past 18 months, but Loock believes she finally has a grip on how to optimise broiler production.
Loock soon realised, however, that while it is possible to earn a living from a small-scale broiler business, it is not easy money. Anneke Loock started her broiler production enterprise in September 2017.
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