What are the advantages and disadvantages of raising peafowl on hillsides?

The peafowl is a well-known specialty poultry breed. After a peafowl farming company in Guangzhou succeeded in breeding them, they have now spread to Zhuhai, Conghua, Shenzhen, as well as Yunnan, Shanghai and other places. So can peafowl be raised on hillsides? What are the advantages and disadvantages of raising peafowl on hillsides?

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of raising peafowl on hillsides?

1. Advantages of raising peafowl on hillsides

(1) Can simulate the wild environment

The site selection requirements for a peafowl farm are the same as those for domestic chickens. The site is best chosen on a hillside with a quiet environment, plenty of trees and shade, a slight slope, and half-sandy, half-loamy soil. Shrubs and pasture grass should be planted within the site so that the activity area is covered in green grass. The advantage of doing this is that it can simulate the wild environment as much as possible, which helps with the domestication and rearing of peafowl.

(2) Simple and easy to carry out, saving labor and materials

No basic construction is needed. Connect a power line, install a light, lay down a plastic sheet, and that is enough. It is simple and easy to carry out.

(3) Suitable for peafowl at any stage

From a nutritional standpoint, peafowl raised on hillsides eat insects, which are all animal protein, so they grow quickly, have full plumage, strong disease resistance, lay many eggs, and have good meat quality. They are a purely natural green food and are highly competitive when put on the market.

(4) Eliminating pests and improving the agricultural ecological environment

At night, attracted by the lights, some agricultural pests and household pests fly over to be eaten by the peafowl. This both purifies the environment and develops the peafowl farming industry, allowing the natural ecology to develop in a virtuous cycle.

2. Disadvantages of raising peafowl on hillsides

(1) Not conducive to epidemic prevention, with infectious diseases running rampant

Because of the extensive nature of free-range raising, the peafowl flock cannot be vaccinated one by one like caged peafowl. Drinking-water immunization also cannot effectively cut off the water supply, and some free-range farmers even give up drinking-water immunization altogether. This causes infectious diseases to run rampant and makes it impossible to stop or even worsens parasitic diseases.

(2) Prone to pesticide poisoning

Although the free-range plot is not sprayed with pesticides, other farmers on adjacent plots will not give up spraying pesticides on their own land because of this. Poisoned insects cross the mesh netting before dying and are eaten by the free-range peafowl, and cases of secondary poisoning caused by this occur repeatedly.

2. What are the peafowl farming techniques?

1. Site selection

Choose flat land or land with a slight slope, and build the farm facing south or southeast. It requires abundant sunlight, high and dry terrain, good drainage, a sufficient and clean drinking water source, and uncontaminated sandy loam or yellow mud plots are preferable.

2. Farm buildings

(1) Hatching room: Isolated from the outside. Both staff and equipment must be disinfected before entering the room. A stable microclimate is maintained indoors, ventilation equipment is good, and indoor air is kept fresh. Set up an egg inspection room, disinfection room, egg storage room, hatching room, chick emergence room, washing room, and chick holding room, etc.

(2) Brooding area: Divided into two parts, indoor brooding and outdoor brooding. Indoors, chicks before 20 days of age are raised. Use angle iron and other materials to first build a frame, each 250×200cm, with a bottom height of 80cm, an inner height of 2cm, and the bottom and surrounding sides 50cm, using 1.5x1.5cm welded wire mesh, with the rest using plastic mesh or fish netting. Outdoors, chicks from 20-60 days of age are raised. The pen area is 5×10m, with indoor and outdoor each taking half. The indoor height is 4m, covered with asbestos tiles, and bamboo frames are evenly set up both indoors and outdoors for the peafowl to perch on.

(3) Growing peafowl pens: The size of the pen depends on the scale. The indoor part accounts for about 1/3 of the total area, the net height is 50cm, and bamboo frames are set up both indoors and outdoors for the peafowl to perch on. Raise 20 growing peafowl per 100c㎡.

(4) Breeding peafowl pens: Each pen houses 1 male bird and 2-5 female birds. The pen size is 5×10m, with indoor and outdoor each taking half.

3. Feed and formulas

(1) Feed: Concentrate feed includes corn, wheat, bran, sorghum, soybean cake, soybeans, etc. Animal feed includes fish meal, bone-and-meat meal, miscellaneous fish, etc. Green and juicy feed includes green vegetables, green pasture grass, wild vegetables, etc. The amount used accounts for 20%-30% of the daily ration. Additives use various vitamins, trace elements and amino acids, etc., at normal or doubled amounts.

(2) Formulas (%): Chick peafowl: corn 3O, whole wheat flour 10, bran 2.6, sorghum 3, soybean cake 25, soybean flour 1, fish meal 12, yeast 5, bone meal 1, shell powder 1, salt 0.4; growing peafowl: corn 38, whole wheat flour 10, bran 4.6, sorghum 3, soybean cake 21, soybean flour 8, fish meal 10, yeast 3, bone meal 1, shell powder 1, salt 0.4; adult peafowl: corn 60, bran 8.5, soybean cake 18, fish meal 8, yeast 3, shell powder 2, salt 0.5; breeding peafowl: corn 48, whole wheat flour 5, bran 5, sorghum 2, soybean cake 20, soybean flour 5, fish meal 8, yeast 2, bone meal 2, shell powder 2.5, salt 0.5. After mixing each of the above feed formulas, add 20g of multivitamins and 100g of trace elements per 100kg. Chicken multivitamins and compound trace element additives can be used.

4. Disease prevention and control

Peafowl are susceptible to coccidiosis and pullorum disease. On the basis of good cleaning, hygiene and disinfection, drug prevention is also needed. Generally, the prevention methods for the corresponding chicken diseases are used, and vaccination against infectious diseases such as Newcastle disease should also be carried out to prevent infectious diseases.