Detailed Explanation of Daily Management Points for the Three-Yellow Bearded Chicken

The Three-Yellow Bearded Chicken is a famous local chicken breed in China, characterized by tender meat, fine bones, crisp skin, delicious flavor, and the three-yellow bearded features. The Three-Yellow Bearded Chicken is a famous excellent meat-type local chicken breed in China. It is tolerant of coarse feed and has strong disease resistance. It originated in the Huiyang region of Guangdong Province, with Zijin, Boluo, Longmen, Huidong, Huiyang and other counties (cities) as the main production areas. It is renowned at home and abroad for its tender meat, fine bones, crisp skin, delicious flavor, excellent meat quality, and its unique appearance featuring three yellows (yellow feet, yellow beak, yellow feathers) and long beards on the lower jaw. Its live chicken export volume is large and its economic value is relatively high. It has long enjoyed a high reputation in the Hong Kong, China and Macao, China markets. The Three-Yellow Bearded Chicken has high value in modern chicken breeding, production, and foreign trade markets. As a relatively outstanding excellent meat-type local chicken breed, it is very necessary to improve its performance and vigorously promote it, to produce high-quality Three-Yellow Bearded commercial chickens in an intensive form, and to actively realize the industrialized development and utilization of this excellent breed resource. Therefore, relying on the College of Animal Science of South China Agricultural University, Saitefa High-Tech Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. implemented the Ministry of Agriculture's "Harvest Plan" project in Zijin County, Guangdong Province -- "Comprehensive Supporting Technology Promotion for High-Quality Three-Yellow Bearded Chicken Breeds." During implementation, the project relied on leading enterprises and adopted the "company + farmer" model, implementing a "four provisions and one recovery" business approach for @#@230@#@ farmers (namely providing chicks, feed, medication, and technical services, and guaranteeing price recovery of market-ready commercial broilers). Over two years, a total of 3,599,600 Three-Yellow Bearded chickens were promoted, 3,471,000 commercial broilers were marketed, the average marketing age of broilers was 115 days, the average marketing rate was 96.5%, and the average marketing weight was 1.46 kg. The chicken production output value reached 65,879,600 yuan, and the chicken farmers obtained a total net income of 7,636,200 yuan. After two years of implementation, the promotion tasks stipulated in the contract were completed, certain economic and social benefits were achieved, and the third prize of the Guangdong Provincial Agricultural Technology Promotion Award was obtained. To help readers better understand the feeding and management methods of the Three-Yellow Bearded Chicken, the key points are introduced as follows. Flock Observation ① When feeding and adding water in the early morning, observe the flock's mental state and fecal condition. If sick chickens are found with symptoms such as runny nose, teary eyes, facial swelling, and difficulty breathing, they should be promptly picked out for isolation or culling. Healthy chickens are lively and active, respond quickly, and have crisp calls; sick chickens are depressed, move slowly or squat in a drowsy state, with ruffled feathers and drooping wings. Normal chicken manure is gray with white urate deposits. ② At night, listen for abnormal respiratory sounds in the flock. Especially in winter, due to poor ventilation, respiratory diseases are easily caused. If snoring, gasping, coughing, etc. are found, isolate promptly if necessary and feed and treat separately. ③ Pay attention to temperature changes in the chicken house, especially in winter when there must be no drafts or cross drafts. ④ Observe whether there are feather-pecking chickens. If found, pick them out promptly, wipe off the blood color with gentian violet, and promptly identify the cause, whether it is weather or environmental changes, excessive density, poor ventilation, excessive light, etc., and handle according to the cause. Feeding Techniques ① Drinking water: Provide sufficient clean fresh water. Each time water is added, the drinker must be cleaned thoroughly. ② Feeding: Feed buckets should be evenly distributed. Feed buckets and trays should be cleaned frequently. After the feed in the feed bucket is finished, take out the feed bucket and let the chickens eat the remaining feed in the trays; provide complete compound feed. Feed buckets and trays should be cleaned regularly and disinfected once a week. There must be no chicken manure or other dirt in them; if wet mash is mixed, do not mix too much, with the limit being that the flock finishes it in one and a half hours, then clean the feeding utensils to prevent the remaining wet feed from turning sour and spoiling and causing disease in the chickens; in hot and humid seasons, when feeding, pay attention to observing whether the feed is caked or has an off smell, etc. Note that moldy feed must not be fed. ③ Fattening: If in the later stage (i.e., 20 days before market) the chickens are not fat enough, you can buy some pork fat or suet from the market, render it into lard and mix it into the feed. The cracklings can also be fed to chickens. Generally, add 2-3 jin of lard to 1 bag of feed. ④ When uniformity is poor, increase the amount of feed per feeding and reduce the number of feedings. ⑤ Regularly disinfect the chicken farm and poultry equipment. Prevention is better than cure. Pay attention to temperature changes to prevent chickens from catching colds and developing respiratory diseases. Environmental Sanitation ① Keep the ground clean and dry. Especially in summer, chicken manure contains about 8% water, which increases humidity inside the house and affects heat dissipation, so it must be removed promptly. ② Clean chicken manure every three or four days, and at most not exceeding one week. If conditions permit, wash once a week. Note that after each cleaning, a disinfectant (such as Baidusha, etc.) must be used once, and quicklime can also be used. Pesticides must not be used for disinfection. ③ Collected chicken manure should be piled away from the chicken farm and must not be piled beside the chicken house for fermentation. ④ Strengthen ventilation. Open as many windows as possible in the chicken house or roll up the surrounding plastic sheeting, etc. The principle of ventilation is to first ensure that the smell is not pungent or eye-irritating, and then ensure the temperature of the chicken house. Preventing Stress When the flock is large, males and females should be raised separately. Because roosters have strong feeding ability while hens are relatively weaker, mixed flock raising is unfavorable for fattening hens. ① Avoid stimulating the flock with sudden high temperatures, strong light, sudden sounds, toxic gases, etc. Once the flock is heard screaming or there is a huge noise, no matter what time it is, you should immediately rush to the chicken house to comfort them. ② For chickens kept confined in the chicken house, when releasing them, be careful not to forcibly drive them out, so as to avoid stress or their not knowing how to return to the pen. Instead, let them go out naturally. You can use the method of taking the feed buckets outside the house. Deworming Management ① Internal deworming mainly refers to removing roundworms, tapeworms, nematodes, etc. Generally, during the feeding process, deworming medication is used twice: the first at 50-60 days of age, and the second at 90-100 days of age. Commonly used deworming drugs include: a: Levamisole, orally administered once at 30 mg per kg of body weight; b: Albendazole, orally administered once at 50 mg per kg of body weight; c: Tetramisole, orally administered once at 40 mg per kg of body weight. ② External deworming mainly refers to removing mites, mosquitoes, midges, ticks, etc. During the feeding process, while improving environmental sanitation, you should also always observe whether the flock's skin has raised areas and red spots, especially on the abdomen and legs. Commonly used drugs include: a: Amitraz, according to the instructions; if spraying results are unsatisfactory, dipping must be used. b: Trichlorfon, bathe with 0.1-0.5% Trichlorfon, being careful not to let the head enter the medicated water. c: Chongliling, 0.1% mixed into feed, used continuously for 3-5 days. Disease Prevention and Control Disease prevention and control should adhere to prevention as the main approach, with prevention more important than treatment, strict disinfection, and timely medication. ① Strengthening the feeding and management of the flock and keeping the flock in a healthy and good state is the primary condition for reducing disease. Use disinfectants such as Baidusha every week for whole-site spray disinfection with chickens present. It is best to clean the floor and all equipment before disinfection; do not allow unrelated personnel to enter the rearing area at will; when the temperature difference between day and night is too large, add some drugs against typhoid and pullorum and for preventing chronic diseases, such as doxycycline, oxytetracycline, ciprofloxacin, norfloxacin, etc., to the feed or drinking water. In hot summer when there is heavy rain or high temperature, add multivitamins and antibiotics, etc. to the feed or drinking water. ② Disinfection measures: The purpose is to eliminate pathogenic microorganisms in the contaminated environment, cut off disease transmission routes, and control the occurrence and spread of chicken infectious diseases. Preventive disinfection is combined with cleaning and sanitation of the chicken house once every 5-7 days; temporary disinfection is carried out when the flock is threatened by infection; disinfection with chickens present prevents pathogens from spreading through the chickens' body surface or feathers. Special situations should be handled promptly. For example, at 22-35 days of age, pay attention to the occurrence of bursal disease. Once it occurs, immediately use 5% glucose for drinking water and inject dual antibodies as soon as possible; or if chickens are found with one leg forward and one leg back and difficulty moving, they should be culled promptly. Medication Precautions ① Strictly grasp the indications. Each drug has a unique chemical structure and a certain scope of action. Clearly understand the antibacterial spectrum of various drugs so that medication is targeted. ② When using injection medication for treatment or immunization, constantly drive away chickens that are huddled together to prevent injury and crushing deaths from piling. Do not be negligent. There are two methods of injection medication: one is subcutaneous injection; the other is intramuscular injection. Subcutaneous injection is generally done at the middle or lower part of the back of the chicken's neck, away from the head. Use the thumb and index finger to pinch and lift the skin along the midline of the neck to form a pouch. Note that you must pinch the skin, not just the feathers, to ensure the needle is inserted under the skin, so as to prevent the drug from being injected outside the body. Intramuscular injection is best done in the breast muscle at the featherless area near the shoulder on the wing. The needle should be inserted diagonally forward to prevent inserting into the liver or chest cavity and causing accidents; leg injection is also possible, with the best site being the inner side of the chicken's thigh where there are no blood vessels. ③ Medication via feed mixing and drinking water. The dosage must be accurate, and the course of treatment must be sufficient. If the dose is too small, effective concentration cannot be achieved; if too large, the body cannot bear it, leading to poisoning and increased costs. The course of treatment generally lasts 3-5 days. It is not appropriate to stop medication too early and cause relapse. Medication via feed mixing: suitable for drugs that are insoluble in water; it is best to administer medication in the morning. If administering in the afternoon, stop feeding for 2 hours before medication; the amount of medicated feed must ensure that every chicken can eat it, and after the medicated feed is finished, wait 2 hours before feeding complete feed; the drug must be mixed evenly. After weighing the drug for one day, first take 5 jin of feed and mix it evenly with the drug, then take 10 jin of feed and mix well, and repeat this multiple times, finally mixing it into the required feeding amount. Medication via drinking water a: First stop water for 3-4 hours. In hot seasons, if the chickens are older, the water deprivation time can be shorter, so that the chickens have a certain thirst. If the chickens no longer drink water, then the treatment goal is achieved; otherwise, injection or oral drenching is used; there must be enough drinking water buckets so that more than 80% of the chickens can drink water at the same time. When preparing the medicated water, the water quality must be clean. First use a large bucket to add the drug and mix well, then evenly distribute it into the water buckets. Ensure the medicated water can be finished within 1.5-2 hours. Note that the medicated water should not be placed in sunlight as much as possible; b: Only water-soluble drugs can be added to drinking water. Drugs that are insoluble or slightly soluble in water, as well as drugs that are easily destroyed or spoiled in water, are prohibited from being administered via drinking water, so as not to affect efficacy or cause poisoning, such as furazolidone, etc.; when administering antibiotic drugs in drinking water, they must be prepared and used immediately.