What are the precautions for raising Silkie chickens? Don't overlook these details
Raising Silkie chickens requires a fair amount of attention to detail. Since the number raised is generally quite large, many details are hard to perfect, and farmers can only focus on the major issues. We can look at the precautions for raising Silkie chickens from the following aspects, so that everyone can raise them better.
1. Brooder room preparation
The brooder room is an aspect that requires special attention when raising Silkie chickens. If the chicks are not raised well in the early stage, fattening them later becomes more difficult. The brooder room should be built according to the habits of the chicks. First is temperature control: when the temperature drops below 25°, the chicks are quite prone to problems. Chicks do not like light, so the lighting in the brooder room should be fairly dim. Since chicks have poor resistance, early-stage sanitation and cleaning are very important, and the brooder room should be easy to clean hygienically. To make it easier to keep the chicks warm, it is best to prepare bedding material in the brooder room in advance.
2. Ventilation and temperature control
Ventilation and temperature control in the chicken house is a very important matter, and it is also one of the pathogenic factors. The vents must be able to run through the entire chicken house, and their placement must be reasonable; otherwise, areas with poor ventilation will accumulate pathogens. Since Silkie chicken droppings are relatively scattered and diluted, if the indoor temperature is too high at this time, the pathogens in the droppings can very easily be triggered and then spread. For adult Silkie chickens, keeping the chicken house temperature above 20° is sufficient, but it must not exceed 30°. Doing these two things well can effectively reduce pathogens.
3. Disease prevention
Disease prevention is the top priority. To make it easier to detect diseases and reduce the harm they cause, it is recommended that farmers not raise too many chickens in each chicken house; at the very least, during summer, the season when disease outbreaks are more frequent, the number in each chicken house should be reduced. In daily feeding, antibiotics can also be given regularly to improve the immune effect of Silkie chickens, with a small amount each time. Vaccines are also key to prevention. When injecting vaccines, in addition to the ones that must be injected, farmers also need to inject vaccines for diseases that occur more frequently in the local area.
4. Free-range management
Nowadays, raising Silkie chickens emphasizes an original ecological approach, so long-term cage rearing is no longer very suitable for the current market, and cage rearing has a higher incidence of disease. Therefore, proper free-range raising is something farmers should pay attention to. When free-ranging, be sure to set a fixed feeding location, prepare a place for rain protection and warmth, and build the surrounding fence firmly, with the height controlled at around 1.5 m. Patrols during free-range raising should be relatively frequent, and the location is best kept fairly natural and original, as this produces better results.
The above are some of the things to pay attention to when raising Silkie chickens, and farmers can refer to them. When the number raised is large, farmers do not need to focus on every single Silkie chicken, so as to avoid wasting unnecessary time.