Site Selection and Layout Techniques for Blue Peafowl Farms
Blue peafowl (scientific name: Pavo cristatus). The male has an erect occipital crest, gorgeous plumage, and upper tail coverts that are especially elongated, far exceeding the tail feathers. It has 20 tail feathers, long and slightly convex in shape; the under tail coverts are downy; the wings are slightly rounded, with the 1st primary feather shorter than the 10th, and the 5th slightly the longest; the tarsus is long and strong, much longer than the middle toe including the claw, and the male has spurs. It mainly lives in hilly forests, dry semi-desertified grasslands, shrublands and deciduous forest areas, especially near water. At dawn and dusk it follows its flock to fields to forage, nesting on the ground but roosting in trees, feeding mainly on seeds, insects, fruits and small reptiles. It is the national bird of India. It is also one of the two national birds of Iran.
Blue peafowl farming is becoming more and more widespread in our country, so what does a blue peafowl farm include? How should it be selected and laid out?
Site selection for the farm
The farm should be built in an area of sandy soil or sandy loam on flat ground or with a slight slope (3-5 degrees), to ensure smooth drainage and no standing water in the sheds. Under natural living conditions, blue peafowl like to live in places with both sun and shade, so the farm area should be sheltered from wind and rain, facing the sun, and with good lighting. To avoid intense sunlight, trees can be planted inside and around the farm. In accordance with the blue peafowl's requirement for a quiet environment and the needs of hygiene and disease prevention, the farm should be kept as far as possible from towns, major highways, railways and other poultry and livestock farms. Transportation conditions are a necessary prerequisite for maintaining external business contacts, transporting feed, and selling breeding birds, hatching eggs and other production, and should be taken into consideration when building the farm. The daily drinking water for blue peafowl, the cleaning and disinfection of feeding equipment, and the incubation of hatching eggs all require large amounts of water, so an adequate water source meeting sanitary conditions is one of the necessary conditions when establishing a farm. The electricity consumption for the feeding and management of blue peafowl is not large, but in larger farms, feed processing, hatching egg incubation, brooding and farm lighting will increase electricity consumption; to ensure production, power construction should be completed when the farm is built and generator sets should be equipped as needed. To avoid and reduce the occurrence of infectious diseases, parasitic diseases and poisoning diseases in blue peafowl, the farm should be built in an area where the soil, water source and air environment are not polluted.
In addition, taking into account the development of the blue peafowl farm, when selecting a site, a certain range of expansion space should be reserved in light of funding and other conditions.
Buildings, facilities and layout of the farm
The main buildings and facilities of the farm include: rearing cages and sheds, exercise yards, hatching egg storage, incubation rooms, feed storage and processing rooms, research rooms, veterinary rooms and various production and living auxiliary facilities.
Male peafowl have well-developed tail feathers and a habit of resting off the ground, so the cage and shed structure must be sturdy and provide sufficient rearing space. For each group of adult breeding peafowl (male-to-female ratio of 1-4, 5), a ground area of 30-50 sq m can be used, of which the bird shed accounts for 1/3 and the exercise yard for 2/3. The height of the cage and shed should be designed at 2.3-5 m. The surroundings and top of the exercise yard should be covered with iron netting or nylon netting with a mesh aperture not exceeding 2.5 cm, and the ground of the cage and shed should use a cement structure to facilitate cleaning and disinfection. To make it easier to remove droppings, a small amount of fine sand can be spread on top. At a height of 1.2-1.5 m from the ground of the cage and shed, tree trunks with a diameter of 5-7 cm should be placed horizontally as perches. For the cages and sheds of young peafowl, the rearing area should be reasonably arranged according to the size of the flock and the age, requiring both sufficient exercise space and as much saving of rearing area as possible, so that the area and position of the exercise yard and bird shed match reasonably and management is convenient.
In addition, in northern regions, warm bird sheds should be built (with heating facilities installed inside). Around the exercise yard, metal netting or an underground wall of more than 30 cm should be laid underground to prevent rodent damage. Feeding troughs and drinkers for blue peafowl should be corrosion-resistant, durable, reasonably constructed, convenient to use, stably installed, not easily polluted and easy to clean and disinfect.
The layout principles for buildings and facilities on the farm should take into account convenient management, benefit to production, ensuring safety and meeting hygiene requirements. According to the order of layout, the areas can be divided successively into the management and operation area, the auxiliary production area, the rearing production area and the hygiene and disease prevention area. The management and operation area can be arranged at the entrance of the farm and consists of functional sub-areas such as administration and logistics support. The auxiliary production area is located between the management and operation area and the rearing production area, and its main facilities include the feed processing room and feed storage. The rearing production area is the core of the farm; when conditions permit, it should be enclosed by a sturdy wall 1.5-2.5 m high. The main buildings and facilities in the rearing production area include incubation rooms, brooding rooms, growing bird sheds and adult (breeding) bird sheds, which can be arranged in the above order from the upwind direction to the downwind direction, with a certain rearing and hygiene spacing between the sheds. The hygiene and disease prevention area should be kept as far as possible from the production area, and the manure and garbage treatment site should be arranged in the downwind direction at a necessary distance from the farm area, and manure and garbage should undergo harmless treatment.