Poultry and Rabbit feeds

Chickens

• Food forms the major part of costs when rearing poultry for eggs and meat.
• It is therefore vital that the poultry  feed is obtained, mixed and given to chickens in the most economic and cost saving way.
• The range of feed and the composition of the diet depends on the breed and age of the chickens.
• Day old chicks require fine mesh until they are able to eat large pieces of food e.g. seeds.
• The feed should contain about 2% animal protein e.g. fish, meat, bone meal or blood meal.
• This has all the amino acids needed by the animal for growth.
• The carbohydrates part of the rations comes in the form of cereal grains e.g. ground maize.
• The protein component is provided by soybeans.
• Poultry birds also need minerals such as phosphorus and calcium for their eggs.
• The feed may have limestone, meat or bone meal to supply this need.
• Poultry birds also require Vitamin D in order to use the minerals inside the body.
• Chickens should be allowed to roam free (be reared as free range/road runners) so as to obtain plenty of light (Vitamin D), green grass and cereal grains in addition to having balanced rations.
• Such chickens (road runners/free range) provide good meat and eggs.

Rabbits

• Rabbits require prepared pellets so that they can grow and develop into healthy large animals.
• Farmers who raise rabbits on a commercial scale and for slaughter want them to grow quickly.
• Rabbits need fresh green food but the pellets make sure that the food is balanced and contains enough protein for growth.
• Young rabbits are weaned 4-6 weeks after birth.
• They may be given 100g of pellets and hay daily for 8 weeks.
• Working bucks (the males) continue to receive rations at this level.
• Pregnant does( the females) should have 11g pellets per day plus hay.
• The hay is gradually be reduced until  18 days after mating.
• Then the does is left on pellets only until her litter is weaned.
• Rabbits also require at least 1 litre of water per day and more if it is a female that is pregnant or suckling.
• The efficiency of rabbits in converting feed into meat varies depending on the breed involved.
• The average slaughter wight is about 2 kg which may be reached in 8 weeks in some breeds and 12 weeks in some breeds.

Composition of rabbit pellets

Rabbit pellet label. Image credit guineapigcages.com

Growth curves

Image credit uky.edu

• The increase in body weight of chickens or rabbits can be used to produce a growth curve.
• This curve shows the best time to slaughter the animals.
• The slaughter time should be before the gain in body weight slows down.
• Once the optimum slaughter time is exceeded the animals gain less and less weight per amount of food consumed.
• This means that the animals will be inefficient in converting food to weight gain.
• This is uneconomical and thus undesirable to farmers who want to maximize returns.
• For broilers the slaughter time is usually 4-5 weeks.
• For rabbits this is between 8-12 weeks depending on the breed involved.

The feed conversion ratio

• This is the rate at which poultry birds convert food into bird weight.
• The FCR is obtained by the formula below:
• FCR=\dfrac{\text{food eaten}}{\text{increase in body mass}}

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