How to raise Taihe silkie chickens? Four key tips to help you get the small details right
The Taihe silkie chicken has a long history of medicinal use in Chinese folk medicine, mainly used to treat diabetes, sudden illness, chest and abdominal pain, consumptive depletion, and so on. The main ingredients of China's famous Chinese patent medicine "Wuji Baifeng Wan" are the meat, internal organs, and bones of the silkie chicken. Even the eggs laid by Taihe silkie chickens contain higher amino acid levels than ordinary eggs, giving them considerable nutritional and tonic value. It was precisely this special medicinal value of the Taihe silkie chicken that caught Li Xianghua's attention, and 10 years ago he began raising this breed and accumulated a great deal of experience in silkie chicken farming.
Tip one: The light bulb heating method
When he first started raising chickens, he found that Taihe silkie chicks were surprisingly small from birth, only about the size of a fist and weighing just over 20 grams, while other chicks weighed more than 50 grams at birth.
Besides being small in size, these little silkie chicks are also especially prone to catching colds. Temperature in particular is a factor: the slightest negligence can easily bring on illness and cause colds. Chicks that catch colds not only eat less and drink more, but more often than not are listless and lethargic, and their resistance drops accordingly. This makes the little ones more likely to get sick again, so the survival rate is naturally poorer. To reduce the likelihood of illness in these small, fragile Taihe silkie chicks, temperature regulation became the first problem facing Li Xianghua.
Generally speaking, in the first week of the brooding stage, an ambient temperature of around 34°C allows ordinary chickens to grow normally, but the optimal temperature for Taihe silkie chickens during this stage is 35-36°C. And because they are born small and weak and are sensitive to changes in ambient temperature, the slightest temperature fluctuation will cause Taihe silkie chicks to catch colds and fall ill.
To get the temperature up to standard, the key is to keep it relatively constant. So Li Xianghua switched from heating with a stove to the simple and easy method of heating with light bulbs. Heating with a stove made the temperature fluctuate, giving very poor results. After switching to light bulb heating, as long as the lights are on and thick cotton quilts are laid over the top, the temperature in the brooding room stays basically unchanged. However, in order to control the temperature up or down according to the chicks' needs, Li Xianghua also prepared light bulbs of various wattages. It turns out that the temperature for silkie chicks during the brooding stage does not stay the same all the time. In the first week, the optimal growing temperature is 35-36°C; by the second week, it should be lowered to 32-34°C; and after that it drops by 1-2°C each week. So every week, the farm's keepers have to change the light bulbs to adjust the temperature and meet the little chicks' growth requirements.
With a suitable temperature, the chicks will no longer catch colds from sudden shifts between hot and cold throughout the brooding period.
Tip two: Free-range rearing to supplement nutrition
Taihe silkie chickens are usually kept until they are 60 to 70 days old, at which point Li Xianghua releases them into the woodland. He chose the woodland for free-range rearing after careful investigation. Taihe silkie chickens can survive being kept in cages, but their nutritional composition changes. He releases them because in the Taihe area, the ecological environment, including the water, soil, and vegetation, is very different. Medicinal plants, soil with high copper and iron content, and the diverse food sources in the free-range area all help the silkie chickens accumulate their medicinal components well.
Tip three: A movable chicken coop
Having plenty to eat and being able to eat is a good thing, but it also became a headache for Li Xianghua. At first, Li Xianghua also kept the silkie chickens in a coop and let them forage nearby. But before long, the patch of grass was gradually grazed bare, and yet the silkie chickens still stayed put and would not leave. In fact, Li Xianghua's ecological free-range area covers more than 3,000 mu, and grass grows everywhere near and far. It is not that these silkie chickens are lazy and would rather eat less than go elsewhere; it is that they dare not. Timid silkie chickens only graze around their immediate surroundings, and they can only range as far as 20 meters, and only when led by a rooster. How could they be made to eat a richer variety of food?
Li Xianghua drew inspiration from beekeeping. To let bees collect better flowers, beekeepers generally use hives that can be moved. Inspired by the beehive, Li Xianghua spent more than a year inventing this small chicken coop that can be carried around. The coop is 1.5 m long and 1.2 m wide, just enough to house 30 to 40 silkie chickens, and the windows at the front and back also ensure good ventilation. Since getting this kind of coop, the silkie chickens are moved about once a month. This way, the grass that has been eaten gradually grows back after a while. It is like rotational grazing on the grasslands: once the grass, insects, and other food in one spot have been mostly eaten, the silkie chickens are moved to another place to feed. This also gives the original patch of grassland time to rest and recover, and the timid silkie chickens can continuously enjoy a variety of tasty foods.