How to Raise Silkie Chickens? Master the Breeding Techniques and Precautions
When it comes to raising chickens, I believe quite a few people have several kinds of chickens at home! Actually, there are many breeds of chickens, and the Silkie chicken is one of them. The Silkie chicken is very special because its whole body is black, making it easy to identify, and its eggs are green, so it is also called the green-shell egg. So do you know how Silkie chickens should be raised and managed?
How to Raise Silkie Chickens
1. Disinfection and rat prevention: Before brooding, the floor and walls of the brooding room should be sprayed and disinfected with a 2000:1 solution of Baidusha S or ABB disinfectant, then the feed troughs should be rinsed clean and dried for later use. At the same time, the brooding room should have a cement wall half a meter high, and rat holes are strictly prohibited.
2. Keep warm and control humidity: Because chicks have short, sparse down, they cannot resist cold and cannot regulate their own temperature. If the temperature is too low, it will hinder the growth of chicks, cause them to huddle and crush each other, and lead to outbreaks of pullorum disease; if the humidity is too high, it will lead to coccidiosis, so reasonable brooding temperature and humidity must be ensured. The brooding room should be equipped with a thermometer to monitor the temperature of the brooding room at any time.
The temperature and humidity of the brooding room are generally as follows: for chickens within 1 week of age, the brooding room temperature is 34°C to 32°C, and the humidity is 65% to 60%; for chickens 1 to 2 weeks of age, the brooding room temperature is 32°C to 28°C, and the humidity is 65% to 60%; for chickens 2 to 3 weeks of age, the brooding room temperature is 27°C to 25°C, and the humidity is 65% to 60%; for chickens 3 to 4 weeks of age, the brooding room temperature is 25°C to 23°C, and the humidity is 60%; after 4 weeks, the temperature is about 20°C, and the humidity is 60%.
3. Drinking water and starting to eat: 20 hours after hatching, chicks can be moved into the brooding room, first drinking water, then starting to eat. For the first drinking water, use 5% to 10% white sugar water and let them drink for half a day, which can improve the survival rate. Chicks before 10 days of age should drink warm boiled water, and the water temperature should be close to room temperature. It is best to use chick drinkers for watering, and the drinkers should always be kept filled with water so that the chicks can drink freely. 2 to 4 hours after drinking, they can start eating. Soak the feed in water a little, until it can be grasped and crumbles easily, then evenly scatter it on plastic sheeting and let the chicks eat freely. The feed can directly be the complete-price feed produced by a feed mill. But no matter which feed is used, for the first 3 to 5 days, the feed must be supplemented with 0.2% chloramphenicol or 0.2% sinomin, or broad-spectrum antibacterial drugs such as ofloxacin should be added to the drinking water, to control the occurrence of pullorum disease.
Silkie Chicken Breeding Techniques and Precautions
1. Feeding points during the brooding period
When chicks have just hatched, warm brooding must be adopted. The optimal temperature for 1 week of age is 35°C-36°C, for 2 weeks of age is 32°C-34°C, and thereafter it should be lowered by 2°C each week. By 5-7 weeks of age, they can be taken off heat. After chicks are 2 days old, if one third of the chicks are found pecking the ground with their beaks, they can start eating. In the first few days of starting to eat, feed them half-cooked millet mixed with cooked egg yolk; the amount of egg yolk can be 1 per 18 chicks per day. After 7 days, switch to mixed feed, mainly half-cooked grains, supplemented with green vegetables, fish meal, and vitamins. The brooding density is about 17 chicks per square meter. Drinking water should be sufficient and clean; in the early stage, feed warm water, and potassium permanganate should be added to the water at a ratio of one ten-thousandth.
2. Feeding points during the laying period
Keep the air in the chicken house fresh, the humidity appropriate, and provide sufficient and clean drinking water. During the laying period, maintain 16-17 hours of light per day; when light is insufficient, supplement it artificially. The daily ration should use a compound feed, including fish meal
10%, soybean cake 10%, grain powder 20%, cornmeal 30%, sorghum 5%, rice bran 7%, shell powder 2%, growth hormone 1%, green feed 15%, using a combined dry and wet feeding method. Before 4 months of age, feed
4-5 times a day. During the laying period, appropriately feed more green, juicy feed to prevent laying hens from becoming too fat. Appropriately adding manganese salt can increase egg production and egg quality.
Living Habits of Silkie Chickens
Silkie chickens grow and develop quickly. From hatching to 13 weeks of age, the body weight of Silkie chickens is 10-30 times the birth weight. The body weight of adult Silkie chickens is 33-40 times the birth weight. Silkie chickens have relatively poor digestive ability. The stomach of pheasants is small, and their ability to digest crude fiber is weak. In ration formulation, feed that is easy to digest, highly nutritious, and low in crude fiber should be used. Silkie chickens have poor disease resistance and are susceptible to various diseases. Their ability to regulate body temperature is also poor, especially chicks, which are small and delicate and easily affected by environmental conditions.
For chicks 0-7 days old, the body temperature is only 39.8°C, 1-2°C lower than adult chickens, and they are afraid of both cold and heat. Silkie chickens have a strong broodiness. Some individuals stay broody for 25 days before waking, but individual differences are relatively large. Those with shorter brooding time have higher egg production; on the contrary, it is lower. Silkie chickens are responsive and timid, easily frightened, especially chicks, which are extremely sensitive to external stimuli.
What Advantages Do Silkie Chickens Have
1. Silkie chickens are a rare poultry among the local chickens unique to our country, with characteristics that other chicken breeds do not have. White-feathered Silkie chickens are graceful in appearance, with feathers as white as floss, and are recognized worldwide as an ornamental chicken breed. Parks everywhere keep white-feathered Silkie chickens.
2. Silkie chickens have high nutritional value and low cholesterol content, and are rich in amino acids, melanin, and free fatty acids, etc. They can increase the heme content of human red blood cells, regulate physiological functions, and enhance immune capacity, making them an ideal food for nourishment and medicinal use. With the improvement of people's living standards, the consumption of Silkie chickens as a black nourishing food will grow larger and larger.
3. Our country's Silkie chickens enjoy a great reputation in the world, and are especially more popular in Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, and our country's Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions. Every year, large numbers of live chickens and processed products are sold to these countries and regions. At present, large-scale Silkie chicken production bases have formed in provinces such as Guangzhou, Fujian, and Jiangxi, and the market prospects at home and abroad are both promising.
The above is the Silkie chicken breeding and management technology summarized by the editor for everyone. I hope it can be helpful to everyone! Many people think that Silkie chickens are relatively difficult to raise, but in fact Silkie chickens are not only easy to raise but also have strong disease resistance. At the same time, everyone is relatively familiar with their nutritional value, which ordinary chickens cannot compare with, so raising Silkie chickens can be considered a relatively good project!