By Olusanjo Awotunde
Poultry business is known to be a lucrative investment especially when mortality reduces to the minimal level. The business gives quick cash returns and the market is always readily available especially when you have higher quantities of birds.
In fact, high mortality rate is the major reason for poultry business failure, especially broiler production. This makes poultry farmers to ensure adequate vaccination, good use of other drugs, good feeding habits, good sanitation and so on. These are put in place just to reduce mortality in other to have good returns.
However, there are five other dangers that may affect your poultry business and make you bang out of the business. Some people don’t take note of these dangers; therefore, they face the consequence as time goes on.
The first one is threat of soldier ants. Soldier ants are so dangerous to poultry business that they can make someone prematurely crash out of the business. These insects can kill thousands of birds in no time. Unfortunately, some poultry farmers don’t consider the harmful effects of soldier ants and this makes them to overlook their prevention until they visit their farms with maximum trouble.
The second one is market delay. Market delay is also a danger that may not make your poultry business a profitable one. This is most applicable to the broiler production business. If your market is delayed for five days, how will you make the common gain? Think of the cost of feeding 1,000 broilers per day and calculate how market delay affects your poultry business.
The third danger is hatchery fault. This is very dangerous as no one knows which bird comes from a good parent, no one knows problems encountered during and after hatching, just as no one knows the inherited disease of each bird. Getting your birds from a trusted hatchery proffers solution to this, yet some of these problems may not be under control. Therefore, you may have higher mortality rate due to the problems that follow your birds from the hatchery.
The fourth danger is carelessness. When you don’t care about who enters your pen, what to do before you enter the pen, when to wash your feeders and drinkers and so on, these can make you have viral and bacterial diseases and increase the mortality of your birds.
The last one borders on transportation errors. Transportation of birds should be done early in the morning or late in the evening. Birds are not transported in the afternoon. This is particularly applicable to both day-old chicks and adult chicks. Transportation errors will not let your birds be agile and they consequently increase mortality even before the birds are brought to your farm.
Please take note of these dangers and ensure you prevent them. Be a successful poultry farmer and help the nation reduce hunger and unemployment rate.
