Animal Husbandry | Daily Farming Tips | Maisha Feeds

Animal husbandry defines the practices a farmer employs to raise his/her animals for productive and profitable farming.
Profitable livestock enterprise will depend on good genetics (30%) and good management 70%. These includes;

• Feeding
• Housing
• Disease control
• Product harvesting, storage and marketing

Feeding animals requires both quality and quantity. Any compromise of the two will result to poor performance.

Housing provides security and comfort to the animal. Different animal species have different housing requirements while the age of the animal will require different housing. Example, for a mature cattle, housing will be of paramount importance for security against theft and predators while a calf will require these plus protection from adverse weather such as draught and rain.

Disease control at farm level involves the practices that are employed to keep off diseases ensuring animals remain healthy. These includes practices like bio-security, parasite control, vaccinations, etc.

In Kenya, there are 3 types of chicken that are reared;

• Commercial layer chicken – purpose, producing table eggs.
• Broilers – purpose, table birds for meat
• Indigenous chicken(Kienyeji chicken) - dual purpose for meat and egg production.

Rearing Commercial layers chicken.

• Chicks are sold as day old chicks from breeder farms. The farmer rears them in an artificial brooder that provides heat and food.
• Heat is provided by electric chick bulbs, charcoal stoves of gas(LPG) brooders.
• The brooding is done for four weeks and artificial heat withdrawn after chicks grow feathers.

A brooder consists of a chicken house.

• A chicken house for brooding chicks has 3 solid walls made of either timber, mud, iron sheets or stones. The leeward side has half of the wall solid while the upper part is made of mesh wire enforced by wild bird proof chicken wire.
• The door to the chicken house opens to the outside to prevent crushing the chicks when entering.
• A foot bath is placed at the entrance of the house and a disinfectant added. Everyone entering the house must deep his feet for disinfection to prevent spread of diseases.