Why can't the methods used for raising free-range chickens be used for raising Silkie chickens?

Chickens are fairly common in what we eat in our daily lives, and there are many kinds of chickens. Many of them we may have eaten, but we do not know their names. Below, let's take a look together with the editor at the methods for raising Silkie chickens, and see how successful people raise Silkie chickens.

“You see, I introduced 1000 Silkie chickens in the first half of the year, and now only a few dozen are left. I originally thought the methods for raising Silkie chickens were the same as those for raising free-range chickens, but who knew that doing it this way would ruin everything……” A reporter recently came to the special breeding farm of Chen Lijun, a villager in Wenxing Village, Nanjiang Town, Nanjiang County, and old Chen said regretfully. In response, the reporter interviewed Yang Zijue, a senior livestock technician and livestock and poultry breeding expert at the Nanjiang County Animal Husbandry Bureau. Expert Yang said that raising Silkie chickens requires technical know-how and is different from raising free-range chickens.

Housing and Equipment

The housing for Silkie chickens should generally face south with the back to the north, have sufficient water and electricity, a quiet environment, convenient transportation, and a dry site sheltered from the wind.

Large-scale breeding farms and housing can refer to those for domestic chickens, and should be equipped with incubators and hatchers. Household raisers or specialized households can use idle buildings and adapt them according to local conditions, and only after strict disinfection can they introduce breeding stock for raising. If conditions permit, factory buildings combining brick and tile can be used, and bamboo sheds or plastic sheds can also be used. Each building is 28 m long, 6 m wide, and 3 m high, divided into 3 to 4 rooms, with 10 m between each building. On the south side, an 8 m long wire mesh or nylon net can be used to enclose 3 to 4 net rooms as exercise yards. Each building can house 500 to 600 adult chickens, or 800 to 1000 growing chickens. For brooding on flat ground, the brooding room can be divided into small rooms of 18 sq m each, with 200 to 300 chicks brooded in each room.

Feed Formulation

Silkie chickens need different nutrients at different growth stages. To increase the growth speed of Silkie chicks during brooding, when feeding chickens from 2 months to 5 months of age, 4% imported fishmeal, 6% feed yeast or feather meal, and an appropriate amount of cod liver oil, etc., should be added to each bag (40 kg) of domestic chick feed. For laying hens, domestic layer feed or complete feed for breeding chickens can be selected. To obtain high yield and improve the quality of breeding eggs, 2% imported fishmeal and 5% feed yeast should be mixed into each bag (40 kg) of domestic layer or breeding chicken feed.

Incubation and Brooding

Each Silkie chicken can lay as many as 150 to 180 eggs per year, with an average egg weight of about 40 grams. The eggshell is white, and the average longitudinal and transverse diameters are 5.5 cm and 4.0 cm respectively.

According to relevant statistics, from March to August each year, the fertilization rate of Silkie breeding eggs is about 86% to 90%, and the hatching rate of fertilized eggs is about 90%. There are two methods for hatching Silkie chickens: farm households raising Silkie chickens can use domestic chickens to hatch the breeding eggs, with 18 to 20 breeding eggs hatched at a time; large-scale breeding can use electric incubators, and the hatching method can refer to the method for hatching domestic chicken breeding eggs.

Silkie chickens have strong stress resistance, so brooding is easy. At 30 days of age, the brooding survival rate is as high as over 95%. Chicks weigh about 30 grams on average when they emerge from the shell, about 100 grams at 15 days of age, and can reach 300 grams at 30 days of age.

Silkie chickens are cold-tolerant. From 1 day to 2 days of age, the suitable temperature is 32°C, and after that it can be reduced by 0.5°C each day until after 21 days of age, when it is maintained at 22°C until heating is stopped.

The relative humidity in the week before brooding should be 60% to 65%, and after 1 week it can be reduced to 50% to 60%. Within 1 week of age, more than 100 chicks can be raised per sq m, and this should gradually decrease afterward. After the chicks emerge from the shell, clean drinking water and feed should be supplied all day, and the feed should be fresh and nutritionally complete.

Feeding Management

For commercial Silkie chickens from 2 months to 4 months of age, it is suitable to supply feed all day with open feeding. For replacement breeding chickens from 4 months to 5 months of age, feeding should be restricted to about 100 grams per chicken per day.

Under flat rearing conditions, 8 to 10 chickens can be raised per sq m indoors. When raised to 6 months of age, they can be managed as adult chickens.

Half a month before laying, breeding chickens undergo a second selection. When roosters weigh 1.5 kg and hens weigh 1.25 kg, keep males and females at a ratio of 1:3 to 1:4.

Breeding chickens are fed layer feed, and during the peak laying period they are fed a higher-protein diet, with crude protein reaching 18%. Laying hens consume about 100 to 125 grams of feed per chicken per day. Indoors, 4 to 5 chickens can be raised per sq m, with 15 to 16 hours of light per day, and light intensity of one 40-watt bulb per 15 sq m, 2 m above the ground. Sand pools should be prepared in the breeding chicken house and exercise yard so the chickens can freely eat sand grains and sandy soil. To improve the fertilization rate of breeding eggs, vitamin E can be added to the feed, with 10 mg added per kg of feed.

Disease Prevention and Control

The European Silkie chicken is a new special poultry breed with very strong disease resistance, and generally fewer infectious diseases occur, but infectious diseases of domestic chickens can also be transmitted to Silkie chickens and cause outbreaks.

Vaccination should be carried out in a targeted manner. The conventional prevention and control method is: at 1 day of age (within 24 hours of emerging from the shell), inject Marek's disease vaccine under the skin of the outer thigh; at 5 days of age, use Newcastle disease virus vaccine strain II for nasal or eye drops; at 18 to 21 days of age, administer live attenuated infectious bursal disease vaccine by drinking water; at 25 to 30 days of age, again administer Newcastle disease virus vaccine strain II by drops. For replacement breeding chickens at 50 days and 135 days of age, inject 0.5 mL per chicken of Newcastle disease virus vaccine strain II respectively. Adult breeding chickens are given intramuscular injection of Newcastle disease virus vaccine strain I during the annual rest period. For chicks from 1 day to 7 days of age, use 0.01% norfloxacin, 0.05% to 0.1% chloramphenicol powder, or 0.02% to 0.04% furazolidone to prevent pullorum disease. From 3 to 25 days of age, compound amprolium, qiu jing, ke qiu powder, and san zi qiu chong powder should be used alternately to prevent coccidiosis. When chickens usually encounter the effects of stress factors, quick supplement-14 or erythromycin thiocyanate, etc., can be added to the drinking water.

Actually, with Silkie chickens, we can tell just from the name of this chicken that it is very different from the chickens we usually eat. Just from the two words "Silkie," it is not hard to understand that the chickens we usually eat are ordinary common chickens, while Silkie chickens are relatively more precious, so their breeding costs also require relatively more investment.