Poultry farming
Animal form & functions > Animal Husbandry
Poultry farming
Poultry farming, raising of birds domestically or commercially, primarily for meat and eggs but also for feathers. Chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese are of primary importance. Poultry farming is the practice of raising domesticated birds such as chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese, as a subcategory of animal husbandry, for the purpose of farming meat or eggs for food. Poultry farms can be:
a) Breeding farms where they raise poultry for meat – poultry reared for obtaining meat is called chicken or broiler.
b) Layer farms where they produce eggs. – An egg laying poultry is called egger or layer.
Improving the variety of poultry : The programs of cross breeding between indigenous (native) and foreign (exotic) breeds for variety improvement are focused to develop new varieties for the following desirable traits.
- Quantity and quality of chicks
- Dwarf broiler parent for commercial chick production for summer adaptation capacity/tolerance to high temperature.
- low maintenance requirement.
- Improvement in hen housed for egg production and reduction in the size of the layer with ability to utilize more fibrous, cheap diet formulated using agricultural by products.