Various Methods of Poultry Farming and Their Advantages

Around the world people keep different type of animals. There are different types of agricultural terms that are used to refer to different types of animal keeping, such as poultry keeping. Poultry keeping is a term that is used to refer to the rearing of birds like chickens, turkeys, geese and all other types of birds that are reared in the world.

In poultry faring, the most commonly known birds that are reared in the world are the chickens. Chicken keeping is a major agricultural practice that most of people practice, termed as poultry keeping, since they are easy to keep and are of great benefit to human beings.

The poultry keeping, especially for the chickens, is purposely done as a way of providing human beings with food and cash. The chickens are among the very few animals that produce meat with high quality protein content, which makes poultry keeping very important. Apart from meat, poultry keeping provides eggs as a product to the farmers of the birds. Eggs also are the major source of protein, which is needed in human body for growth.

Poultry farming is a subcategory of animal husbandry, which majors in the chicken rearing, but other domestic birds can be included. There are different types of chicken that are reared in poultry faring for different purposes.

In poultry farming, there are some chicken types that are reared for the purpose of getting meat only or mainly. These are known as broilers, while those that are reared for eggs are known as layers; which comes from the term laying. The broilers are large in size, looks stronger and have a lot of weight, even in their young age. The layers are smaller in size and have smaller weight as compared to broilers. The most common layers are either brown or white in color.

In poultry farming research done in many agricultural departments, it has been argued that some chickens can only live up to the age of six years, while others can live a little longer. Most layers can produce up to three hundred eggs per year. The production rate for most chickens starts to decline at the age of 12 months. This is where in poultry farming, farmers may opt to slaughter the layers for meat.

The main method of rearing chicken and other domestic birds in poultry farming is intensive farming technique, which is said to afford over 74 percent of poultry meat and about 68 percent of eggs worldwide. The other method for rearing birds at home in poultry farming is the free range method, which is just an alternative to the intensive farming technique.

There are those that argue that the intensive technique in poultry farming has healthy risk when practiced in that it can affect the health of the birds being reared through this method. However, there are those that argue in favor of the same method, saying that the intensive technique saves on food resources. There are a number of countries that have completely banned the cage system housing in poultry farming.

The free range method of poultry farming is where the birds are allowed to roam around, freely. This is important to birds since they are allowed much time to enjoy daytime open air. It reduces the rate of contamination that may occur when the birds are enclosed together.

The other thing that makes the free range method to be preferred in poultry farming is that it reduces too much animal-waste accumulation, which may occur if the birds are enclosed together, and which is likely to cause some healthy implications to bird and humans. In addition, poultry farming where animals are reared with full-time closure, a lot of waste may accumulate and cause the area to stink and may be dangerous to both animals and human beings.

About the Author: Poultry farming is available only in local rural places. Forming Poultry units need a low budget and a small land. So it is like generating income that is sufficient for the rural population. Click here for Poultry farming in India