School Science Lessons
Chicken Project
Updated: 2008-09-20
Please send comments to: J.Elfick@uq.edu.au
See also: Interesting websites
See also: Chicken hatching (website)
See also: Living eggs (website)
Table of contents
Preface
1.0 Management of chicken projects
2.0 Parts of a chicken and feathers
3.0 Post-mortem dissection
4.0 Digestive organs
5.0 Respiratory organs
6.0 Reproductive organs
8.0 Eggs
10.0 Village chicken project
11.0 Semi-commercial system and commercial system
12.0 Care for baby chicks
13.0 Chicken house
13.1 Cages
13.2 Housing
13.3 Nests
13.4 Roosters
13.5 Laying hens
13.6 Egg production
13.7 Point of lay
13.8 Modern egg laying chickens
14.0 Chicken feed
15.0 Chicken project management
16.0 Broiler production, producing meat chickens
17.0 Management and feeding of laying hens
18.0 Timing of replacement stock
18.1 How long to keep layers
19.0 Management of deep litter
20.0 Chicken diseases
21.0 Costs, returns and profits
8.0 Eggs
8.1 Egg laying
9.0 Eggs in our diet
9.1 Eggs, parts of the egg
9.2 Egg density
9.3 Egg preservation
4.206 Float an egg in tap water and salt water (rotten egg gas)
4.159 Centripetal forces with a fresh and hard-boiled egg
12.3.27 Egg in a bottle

12.0 Care for baby chicks
12.1 When baby chicks arrive from a hatchery
12.2 Caring for baby chicks
12.3 House for baby chicks
12.4 Chicken brooders
2.6 0 Hatching chickens
2.6.1 Hatching an egg
2.6.2 Measure the eggs
2.6.3 Incubators, brooders
2.6.4 Development of chicken embryo
2.6.5 Record chicken development
2.6.6 Sexing a chicken
2.6.7 Care for chickens
2.6.8 Castrated capon raising the chicks
20.0 Chicken diseases
20.1 Coccidiosis
20.2 Marek's disease
20.3 Chronic respiratory disease (CRD) (mycoplasmosis)
20.4 Lymphoid leucosis
20.5 Fowl pox
20.6 Vitamin deficiencies
20.7 Botulism or food poisoning
20.8 Fatty liver of laying hens
Preface
Before teaching this project, discuss the content of the lessons with a field officer of the Ministry of Agriculture and get advice on chicken breeds, method of obtaining chickens, site for chicken project, design of buildings, control of pests and diseases, medicines, feed supplements. Use only the procedures, medicines and insecticides recommended by the local field officer of the Ministry of Agriculture. All insect sprays are dangerous. Show the students how to use them safely. Do not get the spray onto your hands. Do not breathe in the spray. Wash your hands well after using spray. Keep the spray container in a safe place where students cannot get it. Spray on a day of no wind but if you must spray when there is a wind, spray down wind. Make sure the spray does not blow on other people.
1.0 Management of chicken projects
The three systems of management of chicken projects
1.1 Village system
In this system the chickens are allowed to run all over the village. They are sometimes fed bought feed, but usually scavenge for themselves and they hatch their own eggs. In other words, the chickens are just "there" and the owner takes the eggs and meat for his table whenever he wants and whenever they are available. In this system production is usually very low, mortality rates are very high and it is a very inefficient method of keeping poultry. However, the advantages are that the owner does not have to spend any time or money on the chickens and can devote his time to other things that may be more important to him. Therefore, any methods introduced to improve the efficiency of this type of poultry keeping must be carefully studied against the owner's desires and the availability of time and money.
1.2 Semi-commercial system
In this system the farmer grows either some special feed for the chickens or purchases feed. This farmer will probably have bought some chickens from a hatchery. They will probably be better quality than village poultry and have the capacity to produce more eggs or meat. With this system the farmer is trying to produce more eggs and meat and to be able to sell any surplus to pay for bought feed and the cost of the bought chickens. The farmer may use this system of poultry keeping to provide protein for the family.
1.3 Commercial system
This is the keeping of poultry for business purposes. Most of the eggs and meat are sold by the farmer. This system of poultry keeping usually fails if the farmer does not have the knowledge or management ability to make a profit.
2.0 Parts of a chicken and feathers
See diagram 50.6.0: Parts of a chicken | See diagram 50.6.5.1: Chicken feathers
3.0 Post-mortem dissection
See diagram 50.6.4: Dissection
Dissect a hen that has a red comb and is laying eggs. Just before the lesson kill the chicken by quick strangulation, but not in sight of the students who may be offended. Pull off all the feathers then wash and dry them for later examination by the students. At this stage do not cut the skin. You will need a piece of wooden board, a hammer, 4 nails about 5 cm long, a new one-sided razor blade or scalpel, a pair of large straight scissors, string, old newspaper, scrap bucket.
1. Put the chicken onto the piece of board.
2. Study the marks where the feathers were joined to the skin. In some places the skin is bare with no feathers.
3. Note the pin feathers on the skin. Use a flame to burn off these feathers.
4. Lay the chicken on its back and nail it to the board.
5. Use the razor blade to cut through the skin over the breast bone and down over the thighs. Follow the lines X -- X in diagram 50.6.4.
6. Pick up the edges of the skin and use the razor blade to cut away underneath the skin so you can lift it off the body. Remove the skin from the whole area inside the dotted lines in in diagram 50.6.4.
7. Put the flat palms of your hands on the legs and break the legs down flat. Push down with your hands until the legs are alongside the body.
8. Make a deep cut with the razor blade through the breast muscle about 2 cm up from the base of the wing. The lines A and B in the dissection diagram show where to make these cuts. Cut down deep until you feel a bone, the main wing bone.
9. Use strong scissors to cut through the main wing bone. Cut it on both sides, A and B.
10. Pull the covering of the abdomen out towards you a short distance and make a shallow cut in it but do not cut the intestines below. Continue this cut along the sides of the body towards the ribs, see the lines C and D in the dissection diagram.
11. Use strong scissors to cut through the middle part of the ribs where the two parts of each rib meet at an angle and make a white mark under the skin.
12. Cut right around the sides towards the front of the bird. Lift up the breastbone at the back and push it up. Use the razor blade to cut the muscles that are holding it down. Cut the breast bone and its muscles and remove it to reveal the organs of the body underneath.
13. Look in the neck for the windpipe. It is white and has fine rings around it. Follow it down to the chest where it joins the two bronchi. Look for the narrow parts which make chicken sounds. Cut off the air tube off and remove it.
14. Lift up the liver and cut underneath it so you can remove it. Do not cut the green gall bladder. Use scissors to remove the heart then mop up any blood left behind.
15. Look in the neck for the oesophagus. Cut it near the head and tie string around the end. Then follow the oesophagus to the crop that is very close to the skin, so cut it away carefully. Follow the oesophagus down to the stomach and the gizzard. Cut off the small red spleen which lies near the stomach.
16. Tie string around the end of the digestive tube near the cloaca to stop the droppings coming out. Then cut this off between the string and the cloaca.
17. Lift all the digestive organs out of the body and put them on a piece of paper. Pull the intestines aside so you can follow the tube for its full length.
18. Open the gizzard and observe its strong red muscles and the pieces of stone or sand in it that grind up the food. Note the intestine, the two blind guts (caecae) and the short large intestine.
19. If the chicken is a male, observe the two large testes.
20. If the chicken is a hen, observe the oviduct. Take out the oviduct and arrange it on a piece of paper. Note the ovary close to the backbone. Lift up the ovary and cut it away from the back. Pull out the oviduct to see its parts.
4.0 Digestive organs
See diagram 50.6.3: Digestive organs and trachea |   See diagram 50. 6. 1: Respiratory organs
1. The mouth has no teeth, only a strong beak that can pick up the food. A short tongue has spines on it pointing backwards. These help to push the food down the food tube.
2. The oesophagus is a long tube that has muscles in its walls. The muscles help to push the food down this tube.
3. The crop is a part of the oesophagus at the bottom of the neck. It is a place where food can be stored while the chicken eats quickly. The walls of the crop can get bigger if much food is stored. Hard pieces of food, e.g. big seeds, are stored in the crop. Here they are softened.
4. The stomach is not very big. When food comes into the stomach, it is mixed with digestive juices that come from the walls of the stomach. These juices help to digest the food and turn it into a liquid that can be taken into the body.
5. The gizzard has very strong muscles in its walls. When these muscles work, they squeeze the food and make it into small pieces. Inside the gizzard is a rough hard lining and sand grains that the chicken has swallowed. These sand grains and the rough wall help to grind up the food into small pieces. The chicken needs a gizzard to grind up its food because it has no teeth in the mouth. The muscles of the gizzard contract strongly once every 30 seconds.
6. After the food leaves the gizzard it goes into the first part of the intestine called the duodenum. Here it is mixed with more digestive juices from the pancreas and the liver. These juices help to soften and digest the food.
7. The intestine is a long narrow tube where digested food is absorbed into the blood to used by the body.
8. The blind gut has two tubes called caecae tied together and joined to the lower end of the intestine. The food inside the caecae is liquid.
9. The large intestine is very short and contains the droppings.
10. The cloaca is the large opening at the end of the intestine.
11. Droppings are green with a capping of white uric acid and are semisolid. The droppings from the blind gut are very soft and are only put out once a day.
6.0 Reproductive organs
See diagram 50. 6. 12: Male organs | See diagram 50. 6. 11: Female organs, The oviduct and the making of an egg
1. The male chicken is called a rooster or cock. Inside his body are two pale yellow organs called testes which make the semen. The semen contains tiny sperm which can swim to fertilize an egg by joining with it. The fertilized egg can grow into a baby chicken.
2. Two small tubes coming from the testes take the sperms to the cloaca where they stay until the rooster mates with a hen.
3. The female chicken, the hen, has an ovary which makes eggs. An egg is called an ovum (plural “ova”) and it later becomes the yellow part of an egg, the yolk. In the ovary the ova grow bigger until one of them is big enough. It breaks out of the ovary and goes into a funnel at the end of a long tube, the oviduct. In a narrow part of the oviduct the sperms are waiting. One of them may join with the egg and so fertilize it so that it can develop into a chicken. In the same part of the oviduct two cords, chalaza, are tied onto the yolk.
4. The fertilized egg then passes down to where the oviduct has thick walls. Here the white of the egg, the albumen, is put around the yolk.
5. The fertilized the egg then passes down through a narrow part of the oviduct where two thin skins are formed around the egg. The egg then passes into the shell gland, a tube with thick walls, where the hard shell is formed around the egg. When the egg is laid, the hen usually sits on it and to keep it warm. Then a chicken may grow inside the egg.
Teach this lesson during a postmortem on a hen. After taking out the digestive tubes, take out and the ovary and oviduct and lay them in a straight line on a piece of paper.
1. Take out the reproductive organs and lay them out in a straight line drawn on a piece of paper.
2. The ovary where eggs are made is attached closely to the back bone of the abdomen. Use scissors to cut away the ovary to take it out of the body.
3. The yolks have many different sizes. Some are very small. As the yolks grow larger they are inside a sac covered with small blood vessels to bring food to the yolk to make it grow. At the long space without blood vessels the yolk breaks out of its sac and starts to become an egg.
4. When a yolk in the ovary is big enough it breaks out of its sac and it goes into a thin funnel that leads down into a long tube called the oviduct. The egg goes first through a very narrow part of the oviduct where, inside the egg, two cords are tied onto each side of the yolk. If a rooster has mated with the hen, sperms will be waiting in this part of the oviduct to fertilize the egg. Later the fertilized egg develops into a chicken.
5. The yolk then passes for 3 hours down a long part of the oviduct tube where the walls are thick to get a thick coating of white of egg. Cut open the thick wall with scissors. The egg then passes through an arrow part of the oviduct for 2 hours where 2 egg skins or egg membranes are added. The egg passes into a part of the oviduct called the shell gland where it stays for about 20 hours while the hard shell is formed around it. Cut open the shell gland. If an egg is in the shell gland, take it out to dry. The egg is dull because it does not yet have a "bloom" on it. The egg then passes through a short narrow part of the oviduct called the vagina where the shell of the egg is covered with a sticky substance. Later it dries and makes the shell look shiny, the "bloom" on the egg. The bloom helps to keep out bacteria that might attack the egg and make it go bad.
8.1 Egg laying
See also 2.6.4: Development of chicken embryo
1. Onset of lay or laying
A pullet (poult) is a young hen, 6 to 24 weeks old. Modern chickens do not begin to lay until at least 20 weeks old. Until they begin to lay, call them pullets. Sometimes pullets start to lay in spring when the days are getting longer. However close to the equator where there is not much difference in the length of the day in winter and summer pullets may start to lay in any season. When a pullet starts to lay, the first few eggs are often very small compare to eggs laid later in the lay period.
2. Clutches
Hens lay eggs in groups called clutches, e.g. a clutch length of 4 means she will lay an egg every day for 4 days. Then she will stop laying and rest for a day before she starts laying the next clutch.
3. Laying cycle
Each egg in a clutch is laid later than the one the previous day. The rising sun in the morning starts an egg leaving the ovary. If a hen takes 26 hours for an egg to be made and they start the first egg of a clutch at 5 a.m., then will lay the next egg at 7 a.m. the next day. The hen may wait an hour before the next egg starts being made, 8 a.m. This egg will be laid the following day at 10 a.m. The next egg starts being made at 11 a.m. and will be laid the following day at 1 p.m. Then the hen will stop the clutch and have a day of rest, because hens do not lay eggs after 3 p.m. Most eggs are laid in the morning.
4. End of lay or laying
When village chickens have laid about 12 eggs, they will usually stop laying and go broody, sit on the eggs until they have hatched. Modern egg laying hens do not go broody so easily, but they usually stop laying in the Autumn when the days are getting shorter. Then they drop many feathers, called moulting. They will not start to lay again until new feathers have grown. Also, hens may stop laying if they are sick.
9.0 Eggs in our diet
See diagram 50. 6. 5: Chicken egg
Take a fresh egg and a plate into the classroom.
1. People need two main kinds of food, energy foods and protein foods. Examples of energy foods are rice, root crops and coconuts. Examples of protein foods are fish, meat and other animals, e.g. insects, snails, frogs and worms. Plants contain some protein especially legumes, e.g. peanuts, beans and peas. People need protein to make muscle and skin. Children need more protein for every kilogram of body weight that adults need. Eggs are very good protein food. Both the yellow yolk in the middle of the egg and the white of egg around it contains much protein.
2. An egg has a pointed end and a round end. The round end contains air. As an egg gets older, the air increases. Push a pin into this end by making a small hole in the shell. The air comes out when the egg is put into boiling water to cook it.
3. Break an egg carefully onto a plate. The yolk is the yellow part in the middle. It contains fat and protein. Some people like eggs where the yolk is a dark yellow colour. Chickens that have not had much green grass to eat may lay eggs with pale yolks. Sometimes the yolk has a blood spot but eating it is not harmful. Blood spots may occur when the yolk breaks away from the ovary and starts to turn into an egg. The white of egg also contains protein. It is usually in two parts. The thick white is next to the yolk. The thin white is watery and spreads out on the plate. In good eggs have much thick white and not much thin white. In an egg also see the two cords that connect the yolk to the inside the shell. The cords hold the yolk in the middle of the egg.
9.1 Eggs, parts of the egg
See diagram 50.6.2: Chicken egg, parts of the egg
Study the component parts of a hen's egg and name the parts. Tap a hen's egg against the rim of a dish so that the shell egg cracks in the middle. Break open the two parts of the egg without using too much pressure, and lets its contents flow into the dish. Do not break the yoke! The liquid white fills the egg apart from a small air space. Inside the egg white, note how the albumin filaments, the chalaza, hold the yellow yolk in the centre of the egg, The germinal disc, from which the chick develops, lies on the yolk mass. The part of the yolk opposite the germinal disc is the heaviest, so the germinal disc always floats on the top of the yolk and receives the greatest amount of heat when the hen is sitting on the egg. As the hen sits on the egg, a chick gradually develops from the germinal disc. During this period, the yolk and white of the egg nourish it. When, after 21 days, the yolk and the white have been consumed, the chick is fully developed and hatches out of the egg.
9.2 Egg density
The density of eggs decreases with age because of evaporation of water through pores in the shell. Evaporation increases with increase in temperature. A new-laid egg placed in salt water will sink to the bottom. A 1 day old egg sinks below the surface, but not to the bottom. A 3 day old egg will sink just immersed in the liquid. If more than 3 days old the egg will float on the surface. So more shell is exposed with age
Average relative density
Fresh eggs 1.090
After 10 days 1.072, loss of 1.6%After 20 days 1.053, loss of 3.16%
After 30 days 1.035, loss of 5%
9.3 Egg preservation
Fresh eggs are preserved by low temperature, cold storage just below freezing point and by excluding air by coating or immersing the eggs.
Eggs preserved by cold storage must be used soon after they have been removed from storage and thawed.
Water glass, potassium silicate or sodium silicate or a mixture of the two, is used for preserving eggs. Commercial water glass is sold as thick syrup liquid and as a powder. Dissolve 1 part of water glass in 10 parts of boiled water.
Pour the solution over the eggs packed in a suitable container and store them in a cool place. Do not wash the eggs before preserving them because this removes the natural mucilaginous coating on the outside of the shell. To prevent the shells of eggs preserved in water glass from cracking when boiled puncture the blunt end of the egg with a pin before putting it into the water.
Estimate the age of an egg by floating
Place a fresh egg in a solution of 1 part of salt to 2 parts of water. From 1 to 36 hours old, the egg sinks completely, lying horizontally on the bottom of the container. After 2 to 3 days, the egg sinks to just below the surface of the water, with a slight tendency of the large end to rise. After 5 days the long axis of the egg floats at 20o from the perpendicular. After 8 days 45o. After 14 days 60o. After 21 days 75o. After 30 days 90o, so the egg floats upright with the point or small end downward. The change in floating action is caused by the air cavity in the big end of the egg increasing in size and capacity as the egg grows older.
10.0 Village chicken project
See diagram 50. 6. 2: Life cycle
1. Many people like village chickens because they do not appear to need any care. The chickens find their own food and look after themselves. They hatch out clutches of chickens and some of these chickens grow up into adult birds. In some villages, chickens can always be found to be killed and eaten.
2. When a hen goes broody, it should hatch many chickens and nearly all chickens should live and grow to a big size. However, in some villages many chickens do not survive. A village hen may hatch out 10 or more chickens from her eggs. She then walks about the village with baby chickens following her. However, after about 3 weeks she may have only a few chickens left because the other chickens have died. In some villages most of the hens are not laying eggs. Some have stopped laying and spend all day sitting on their eggs so they will hatch out. Chicken production would increase if most hens were laying eggs and only a few hens were going broody and sitting on eggs to hatch out chickens. Some have hatched their chickens and spend all day walking around the village trying to find food. They are not laying eggs at this time.
3. Investigate what happens to little chickens when the hen takes them to find food in the village. Tie labels on the legs of the chickens, e.g. label A for a particular hen and labels A1, A2, A3 etc. for her baby chickens. Note how many village hens are broody and sitting on eggs or broody with young chickens. Note how many village hens are not broody. To check whether these hens are laying eggs, catch the hen and observe whether the lay bones are two fingers apart and the vent (cloaca) soft and moist.
4. Village hens have not been bred to lay eggs. They are descended from chickens that have always lived in the village. These chickens do not lay many eggs and do not produce much meat. They are small chickens compared to modern chickens that have been bred to lay many eggs or produce much meat. Modern egg breeds can produce many eggs but they are expensive, need special imported food and require much work to look after them properly. The hens of fast-growing big meat chickens will not lay many eggs. Chickens that lay many eggs will have small bodies and not much meat on them. So breed chickens for egg laying or for growing meat but not both.
5. Put a hen with her chickens in a small yard with a creep in it to investigate how small chickens can be saved from dying.
5.1 Find a hen that has just started to sit on her eggs. Count the 21 days and be ready to find the hen when she has hatched out her chickens. Then drive the hen and chickens into the house made for them.
5.2 Find a hen that is walking around the village with many new chickens. Drive the hen and her chickens into the house made for them.
6. Decide what food to give the little chickens. Imported special food for little chickens called "chicken starter" may be too expensive for a village chicken project. 
6.1 Energy food: Make energy food from grated coconuts or from root crops cooked and grated into small pieces.
6.2 Protein food: Make protein food from small fish, scaled, boiled until cooked and scraped into small pieces. Also, use sea cucumbers (beche de mer), small crabs and shellfish and big African snails. Soft legume plants, e.g. each pea, can be chopped up into small pieces and mixed with other food.
6.3 Vitamins: Some soft green feed should also be cut into fine pieces and mixed with the food.
6.4. Minerals: Get some mineral mixture from the Department of Agriculture and mix the food or mix in a little salt and a little clean soil.
7. Ask the Department of Agriculture about using a medicine to prevent disease coccidiosis, e.g. drugs such as Amprolium, Sulfaquinoxiline, or Sulfamezathine. They may be very expensive. Use them for the first 5 weeks of the chickens' life.
8. When the chickens arrive, put prepared food in the creep. Provide food for the hen and the small chickens. Keep the small chickens in the house all the time or open the house only in the afternoon to allow the hen to take the chickens outside to find some food. The hen will teach the little chickens to find food but the hen must take them back to the house before the night. By the time the chickens are six weeks old they are bigger and stronger and can look after themselves so can let them go out of the house.
9. Keep records of the village chicken project:
9.1 Number of chickens put in the project, n1
9.2 Number of chickens were still alive at six weeks of age, n2
9.3 Calculate percentage survival (n2 / n1) x 100,
9.4 List causes of death: disease, eaten by dogs, trodden on by humans, lost in the village, drowned
9.5 List kinds of energy food and protein food given to chickens.
10. Growing village chickens as layers
The cockerels can be killed and eaten or sold in a market. Get more eggs from the village pullets by giving the chickens some food in the house to get them used to coming to the chicken house. When the chickens grow bigger, build a bigger creep. Build some nests in the house when the pullets approach 20 weeks of age. They will see these nests when they come to the house to find food. Later when they start laying as hens they will not have to go searching for the nests and collecting the eggs will be easy. If some eggs are left in the nest, the hens keep laying and stop them from going broody. Keep some cockerels with the pullets to have fertile eggs. Modern chickens must be kept shut up in their own separate house so that so they will not steal the food from the village chickens and not mix with the village chickens and catch diseases from them.
11. Investigate the habits of village  hens
11.1 Note where they lay eggs and  how many days after laying before the chickens hatch. (21 days)
11.2 Note the number of hens and roosters in the village.
11.3 Note the colours of the hens and roosters.
11.4 Note how many hens have very small chickens and larger chickens.
11.5 Note how many older chickens the hens have.
11.6 Find a nest where a hen is sitting on some eggs. Note how long the hen stays sitting on the eggs before she gets up to move around. Note whether the hen has shelter from the rain, protection from other animals, e.g. dogs.
11.7 Note how many eggs the village hens lay.
11.8 Watch a hen walking with her chickens. Note how often the chickens eat something. Note whether the chickens stay near the hen.
11.9 Investigate why some chickens die, e.g. run over or squashed, eaten by cats or dogs, drowning, starvation, disease.
11.10 Note the noise the hen makes to call the chickens or when danger is nearby. Not what happens when a hen sees a hawk nearby.
11.0 Semi-commercial system and commercial system
A semi-commercial system can achieve an increase in production over that obtained from traditional village farming if some form of housing and some form of supplementary feeding is available. This system of poultry keeping requires the chickens to be kept in a house where they are given their supplementary feed and where they will lay their eggs, until about midday. At midday they are let out to scavenge as they would in the village system.
12.0 Care for baby chicks
12.1 When baby chicks arrive from a hatchery
See diagram 50. 6. 5. 1: Chicken feathering record
1. When the chickens arrive, collect the chickens, open their box and give them some food and water.
2. Record number of chickens, date of arrival, number died before delivery, number of sick chickens on delivery, colour of feathers, colour of beaks, colour of eyes.
3. Note whether all chickens are eating. If not, tap on the food container with a pen. The chicken will think it is the sound of the hen's beak and it will start eating.
4. Note whether all chickens are drinking. If not, catch a chicken and gently push its beak into the water to make it drink.
5. Study the chickens carefully. Note the number of toes, earlobes, wattles, any sign of a comb and any abnormal features, e.g. twisted legs.
6. Note the colour and size of the first droppings.
7. Record any feathers on feathering records.
8. Note whether the chickens move about or stay together in one place, where do they go, the sounds they make and how they drink.
12.2 Caring for baby chicks
See diagram 50. 6. 9: Pick up baby chicks
Hold a chicken safely. Hold the legs between the last 2 fingers of the right hand.
1. In some villages the people are not accustomed to caring for chickens.
Make a roster and put down the names of four students for each day to go to the brooder twice every day and do the following:
1.1 Replace newspaper covering the floor.
1.2 Empty the drinker. Clean it with running water. Fill it with clean water again.
1.3 Add food to the feeder.
1.4 Study each chicken carefully. Look at the droppings. If the students see anything that is not right they should tell the teacher straight away. Every 5 days, record chicken weights and how many feathers are showing.
2. Prevent little chickens from dying when they are young. Some chickens may be killed by hawks, or cats, dogs or other animals. Some chickens die because they get a disease. Some little chickens die because they do not get enough energy food and protein food. However if some food is put out for them to eat, dogs or big roosters and hens may eat the food and chase the chickens away. 3. Choose a dry place to make the yard. Put a fence or wall around the yard to keep other chickens and animals out. Put in strong posts for the house. Make walls and roof for the house. Build a creep in the middle of the house with a cover that can be taken off to put food inside it. Make a protected place where the hen can sit on her chickens. Use a creep to stop dogs and the big chickens eating the food for little chickens. A creep can be a small area surrounded by small sticks pushed into the soil. The sticks are so close together that dogs and big chickens get inside this place but small chickens can. Make a cover over the creep to keep out dogs, other chickens and rain. Build the creep under a roofed pen so the hen and her chickens can be put inside the pen until the little chickens learn to find the food in the creep. The food for the small chickens should be in very small pieces. The wall of the feeder must not be too high for little chickens to eat out of it.
4. Feeding young chickens
Day old chickens for meat or egg production require a 20% protein feed. The feed contains a coccidiostat to prevent coccidiosis disease. When buying feed for chickens, check the label on the bag to see whether the feed is medicated with a coccidiostat. Feed the chickens the 21% protein medicated feed for the first six weeks. If raising meat birds, then keep feeding this feed until the chickens are 9- 10 weeks of age when they will be sold at the market. If raising pullets for egg production, at the end of six weeks change the feed to a grower feed that contains only 15% protein. Use the lower protein feed to save costs and to delay the maturity of the chicken when it starts to lay eggs. By delaying maturity, the chicken will produce larger eggs when it starts to lay at about 24 weeks. If a chicken is made to lay eggs at too young an age, most of the eggs it will produce during its life will be small eggs. If the price received from small eggs is not as much as that received for large eggs, the more large eggs the greater the profit. Commercial poultry keepers, usually buy feed because they do not have enough time to grow feed crops.
12.3 House for baby chicks
See diagram 50. 6. 6: Make a chicken house | See diagram 2. 6. 7: Make a chicken surround
The house must have the following:
1. The house must be dry. It must have a roof and good walls that keep out the rain. Air vents in the walls must have hoods over the top of them to keep out the rain.
2. The house must be cool. Do not use iron for the roof or walls. Use materials such as palm thatch that allows air to flow through it. Do not use plastic sheeting for the walls of the house, because no air flows through it.
3. The house must be safe to protect the chickens from cats, mongoose, owls, dogs and human thieves who may steal the birds. Predators can be kept out by putting wire netting or loose bamboo strips over all the holes. The only way to keep out thieves is to put a door on the house and put a lock on this door.
4. The house must have enough space. Laying hens need to have more space than meat chickens. Twelve hens need 4.4 m2 of floor space. A house 1½ m X 3 m, or 2 m X 2 m  enough floor space for 12 hens.
5. The house must have perches. Each chicken needs 23 cm of perch length. So if the house is two metres long, use 3 perches two metres in length along one wall.
6. Cover the floor of the house with deep litter and put the chickens in a round “surround” with no corners where for the chickens can huddle together and smother. Use a 2 metre surround for 250 to 300 chickens. Keep  the chickens confined for the first two weeks close to their source of heat, feed and water. After two weeks gradually increase the area until at four weeks they can use the whole floor area of 100 cm2 per chicken. You can remove the surround after two weeks, but block of the corners of the house to prevent crowding.
12.4 Chicken brooders
See diagram 50.6.3.1: Simple electric incubator | See diagram 50.6.3.2: Warm brooder, electric incubator | See diagram 50.6.3.3: Brooder drinker, feeder box
Chickens require a uniform temperature for the first six weeks of their life. In nature the warmth of the hen's body gives the chicken enough heat, but when chickens are raised artificially a source of heat must be provided for them. This is most economically provided by warm earth brooder or kerosene lamp. 1. Prepare a brooder to be ready before the modern laying chickens arrive. Use it for the first 2 weeks. You can make two kinds of brooder:
1. Make a cold brooder from a cardboard carton or a box 76 cm long and 37 cm wide to hold 12 small chickens. The chickens can keep warm for the first 10 days of their life by moving between strips of old blanket fixed to the roof at one end of the brooder. Put the feeder and drinker at the other end of the brooder. 2. In a hot brooder the heat is provided by a kerosene lantern turned down low. The brooder must be big enough so that chickens can move away from the kerosene lantern if they find it too hot.
2. Make drinkers from two tins of different sizes. The smaller tin has a small hole made with a nail down near the open end. This hole must be below the edge of the larger tin. The larger tin is cut down to 4 cm deep.
3. Make a feeder from a chalk box so that chickens cannot stand in the food. In warmer coastal places the easiest method is by using a kerosene lamp and a sheet of 3-ply timber. Cut a hole is cut in the middle of a 112 cm x 112 cm piece of plywood for the lamp. The brooder should be 15-20 cm high from the floor. Light the lamp at about five o'clock in the afternoon. Nail pieces of bag 5 cm wide ed onto the 3-ply timber to keep the heat in and allow the chickens to go in and out. In cooler highlands places so plenty of heat must be provided to keep the chickens warm. The ideal temperature for a brooder is 35oC measured just inside the brooder and 2. 5 cm above the floor. If you do not have a thermometer, judge the temperature by putting a hand inside the brooder. If the temperature feels pleasantly warm, the temperature is right for the chickens. If it feels hot, turn down the wick of the lamp.
 4. A warm earth brooder is suitable for large numbers of chickens. You need a special house for this brooder, with a low ceiling, about 120 cm high. Bury a 44 gallon drum half way into the earth. Make a chimney, a vent for air and a hinged lid so wood can be put on the fire. Provide protection around the drum so that the chickens cannot burn themselves on the hot drum. Light the fire in the afternoon and adjust the air vent so the fire will burn all night. This brooder is useful for the colder highlands.
13.0 Chicken house
See diagram 50. 6. 6: Make a chicken house | See diagram 50. 6. 10: Door end of house | See diagram 50. 6. 9: Height of feeder
The house needs have only 0.25 m2 per bird. It should be made out of bush materials. For 10 hens and one rooster, the house would be 1.5m x 1.5 m, have three nests, roosting space and a feed trough and a water trough made with bush materials, e.g. bamboo. The house should have a big roof overhang and a deep drain around the building to stop water getting in. Cover the floor with deep litter material, e.g. chopped dry grass, coffee skins, rice husks.
13.1 Cages
When the pullets start to lay, some people prefer to put them into laying cages instead of leaving them on the floor. :
1. When you leave hens on a floor, they will form a social order and peck the lowest hens in the social order so much that they get worried by the pecking and they do not lay as many eggs. If you put each hen into a separate cage then no hens will be worried by pecking.
2. When hens are put into separate cages, each hen has its own food and water so you can be sure that each chicken gets enough food.
3. When a hen lays an egg in a separate cage, it rolls down in front of the cage where it is easy to collect and then hen cannot peck at the egg and eat it. Also you can tell which hens are not laying.
Cages can be made with wire netting placed on supports so they are chest high. The droppings fall onto the ground under the cages. Instead of wire netting you can use bamboo sticks to make cages.
3.1 Put two rows of posts 48 cm apart in the ground with one row 6 cm higher than the other row. The pairs of posts are 25 cm apart in the rows. Use string to make sure that the posts in each row are all the same height. Build a framework for the cages with squared timber. To make 24 cages,  use eight pieces 2½ x 5 cm x 3 m, six pieces 48 cm long, 26 pieces 73 cm long, 52 pieces 42.5 cm long. Nail down the 73 cm long narrow floor pieces of split bamboo with the round side up. They must stick out of the cage on the lower side. Leave a space of 1.3 cm between each  of the floor strips. This makes a tray so that the eggs roll down into this tray and stay outside the cage. The small spaces between the floor pieces let the droppings fall down to the floor. Put on the sides between the cages using pieces 2.5 cm apart, close enough together to stop a hen putting her head through it to peck the hen in the next cage. Fix pieces of split bamboo to the front and back of each cage about 7 cm apart so the hen can put her head through them to eat or drink. Leave a space 6 cm at the bottom of the front side so the eggs can roll out of the cage. Make a lid for the top of each cage from thin pieces of whole bamboo. They must be round and 7 cm apart so the hen can put her head up through the lid without getting cut by the sharp edges of split bamboo. Tie the lid to the top of the cage with string. Do not use nails. Fix food and water troughs to the front and back of each cage.
13.2 Housing
Layers can either be housed on deep litter or be allowed to run outside. If they are fed properly, you can to keep them on deep litter. If they outside they may be killed by dogs or infested with worm internal parasites that lower their production and affect their health. On a commercial poultry farm, keep the chickens on a deep litter floor. Management of the laying hens is very easy if they are on deep litter because you only have to feed and water them daily. Keep the feed and water troughs clean. Rake over the deep litter material two times a week. Collect the eggs twice daily, at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. so that there will be less broken eggs and hens will be less likely to start eating their own eggs. If you see any sick birds, remove them immediately from the house. The hen prefers a comfortable and relatively dark place with sawdust, coffee skins or soft grass in the nest to lay her eggs on. Provide one nest for every 4 birds. The nest should be placed about 45 cm above the ground. You can use a four gallon kerosene tin with half of the top cutout to make a nest.
Find a hen that will soon hatch out her chickens or has just done so. Find the place the hen chooses for making a nest. Look for nesting places that hens have chosen. Hens like the nesting place to be a little dark. They do not like too much light. They like places with a small entrance and more room inside. They do not mind if they have to push through some leaves or grass to get inside the nest. They like to have some cover over their heads when they sit on the nest. They do not like strong sun shining on them or rain falling on the nest. Hens like the nesting place to be a private and that they cannot be seen easily. Hens like nests is low down or right on the ground. Hens like the nest to be comfortable with soft litter in the nest. Make a place where hens can pick up small pieces of stick or grass or feathers. They like to pick up these things in their beaks and put them on their backs. If you are making a nest, then you can put some of these small things around the nest. It must be in a dry place. If the ground is in a hollow or low place, then the level of the soil can be built up. To make the hen go broody, put a nest egg in the nest. When hens they are looking for a place to make a nest they like isolation, darkness, head cover, small entrance, low level, comfortable, small pieces to pick up and dryness.
13.3 Nests
At about 20 weeks of age, you must provide nests for the pullets to start laying. Hens like nests to have the following features:
1. be dry
2. be a little dark. with a small entrance
3. have head cover
4. be isolated from other objects in the house
5. be low down
6.  be soft so that a hole can be scratched in the middle of the nest
7. have small pieces of grass, feathers or stick, close to the nest that the hen can pick up in her beak
8. have a hole at the back to give air flow through the nest.
Sometimes you can help a pullet to start laying if you put in the nest a china egg or a round stone about the size of an egg. Place the nests up against the wall of the house in a corner. Never use steel or iron drums for making a nest because they get too hot on hot days. Provide one nest for every 4 or 5 hens. So for 12 pullets, you need 3 nests in the corner of the house.
Three types of nest:
1. Take out one of the narrow side boards of a wooden box. Cut apiece off it and put it back to make a support to hold the nest material in place. Use wood to cover up half of the open side and make a small entrance. Cover any gaps between the boards that let in light with using bags to make the inside darker. Put soft grass material inside the box and small pieces of grass just outside the nest. Make a small hole in the back so that cooling air can flow through the nest.
2. Use a cardboard carton from a store. Cut away part of a side. Make a hole in the back for ventilation also.
3. Use 4 strong sticks about 60 cm long. Sharpen the ends and drive them into the ground close to the wall so that their tops are close together. Tie the tops together firmly with string. Put a cover over the sticks but leave 2 holes, a big hole on one side for the hen to enter and a small hole on the other side for air flow. To cover the sticks use thatch, paper, cardboard or woven wall materials.
13.4 Roosters
Roosters are not necessary for hens to lay eggs. They are only necessary only if you want to breed chickens. If the chickens are kept only to sell their eggs, then they will lay more eggs if there is no rooster kept with them. Roosters are not necessary for chickens to lay eggs. Fertilized eggs will stay fresh for only three days, but unfertilized eggs will stay fresh for at least a week.
13.5 Laying hens
Laying hens require 0. 25 m2 of floor space if kept in a deep litter pen. Provide roosts, egg nests and clean water. Feed green feed once a day. Provide a box of crushed coral or shell grit for the chickens to peck to so that they get plenty of calcium to make the egg shells strong. Also, provide hard grit or very small stones in a separate box for the birds. Poultry do not have teeth so they eat hard grit that is held in the gizzard to help grind the feed. The chickens are fed a16% layer ration in a self-feeder once a week. As with chickens and growers, turn the deep litter material once a week. The nests must have clean grass or coffee hulls in them that are changed every 2 weeks. If you see clucky or broody hens, i.e. chickens that sit on the eggs to hatch them, put them in a separate wire cage for three days.
Good layer management requires the following:
1. Give correct feed. Use a creep to give food to small chickens.
2. Make clean water available at all times.
3. Make green feed available once a day.
4. Make shell grit and hard grit available in separate boxes.
5. House must be waterproof and free of draughts.
6.  Plenty of roosting space and nests are necessary.
7. Turn deep litter once a week.
8. Nesting material must always be clean to keep eggs clean.
9. Collect eggs twice a day.
10. Cull layers at 18 months of age.
11. Keep the layer house away from the young stock shed.
12. Clean houses out thoroughly before putting in new stock and rest for three weeks.
13.6 Egg production
1. Hens will lay 160-240 eggs in twelve months.
2. Losses from day old to 18 months should not be higher than 15-20% for the business to be economic.
3. Pullets will start laying at 24-26 weeks of age.
4. As a rough guide for budgeting for layers, the sale price of ten eggs should be ten times the price of 0. 5 kg of layer feed, e.g. 0. 5 kg of feed costs six cents, therefore the sale price of ten eggs should be 60 cents.
5. Stop hens going broody and always sitting on their nest. A hen goes broody is when she can feel many eggs underneath her or see many eggs in the nest. The feathers of the broody hen are fluffed out and she makes a clucking noise. So you can stop hens going broody if you collect the eggs from the nest. However, village hens may hide their nests and make nests the same colour as the grass and the ground so and seeing them is difficult. Never take all the eggs away from a nest because if a hen comes back to her nest and finds that all her eggs have gone, she may leave that place and make a nest in another place. So you should leave three eggs in the nest. you can use some China eggs or you can put a mark on 3 eggs so you will know which ones to leave each time.
6.  You do not want to eat an egg that has started to turn into a chicken. As an egg starts to turn into a chicken, the bubble of air at the round end gets bigger and the egg floats. If you put eggs into a bucket of water, the fresh eggs will sink to the bottom, but eggs with a chicken inside, or bad eggs, will float.
13.7 Point of lay
1. The first eggs laid by pullets are usually very small. There is nothing wrong with this. Larger eggs will soon be laid. There may be no small eggs laid if the chickens have not been given all the food they need. Restricted feeding is sometimes used to help stop Marek's disease. The chickens start laying later than 22 weeks, but the first eggs are usually big.
2. Record the age of the pullets when they started laying.
3. Hens cackle after laying an egg, so this the sign that they have laid. It is also a sign to any roosters that they are again ready to mate.
4. Record the clutch length of a hen. Mark a certain hen and record the times when she lays an egg on two successive days. Usually the second egg will be laid about 26 hours after the first egg. Then calculate the clutch length because no eggs will be laid after 3 p.m.
5. Collect and record the eggs taken from each nest.
13.8 Modern egg laying chickens
The White Leghorn breed is all white and has a small body, with a big red comb. Some may have patches of black or red colour and white because they are crossbreed hybrid laying chickens. These chickens can lay many eggs when they grow bigger, but they must have good food and good care. They need much more care than the village chickens. They will need their own house with a roof and fence, a brooder, feeders and drinkers, a creep, nests, good food. When the little chickens arrive, give them food, water and shelter. Imported chick food is expensive but makes the chickens grow quickly. The chickens will arrive in a box but you have no hen to care for them. So you must make a brooder where the chickens will be warm and be cared for during the first 10 days. After the chickens leave the brooder, they must grow to a big enough size before they can start to lay eggs. you may need to care for them for 20 weeks before they are ready to start laying. In places where the difference between the length of the day in winter and in summer is large, the hens start to lay best in the spring when the length of the days is getting longer. However in tropical countries the length of the day does not change very much and pullets will start to lay any time.
14.0 Chicken feed
This system requires high protein feed. When the chickens are out scavenging in the afternoon, they will find some feed. However, most of it will be of a carbohydrate nature that is low in protein and unless they are fed a high supplement their production will be low. Either buy a high protein feed, e.g. protein concentrate or meat meal, or grow a high protein feed, e.g. soybean. Buying high protein feed is easier, but it may be expensive. Mix the high protein feed with cooked sweet potato, taro, yams, or grain, e.g. sorghum or corn, in equal proportions so that each chicken receives 56 g of feed per day, i.e. 28 g of high protein feed and 28 g of other feed. Fed in this way, a 50 kg bag of high protein feed would last eleven chickens 51/2 months. The sale of one egg per day from the project might cover the cost of the bought feed. Using this type of feeding expect about three eggs per day from ten hens. If growing feed, you must estimate how much feed you need to grow. An adult chicken will eat 110 g of feed per day, and although the chickens will be outside scavenging for 4-5 hours per day you must still provide this amount of feed. At 110 g of feed per day the eleven chickens will eat 1.25 kg feed per day, i.e. 8.75 kg per week or 455 kg per year. Below are some suitable mixed rations for this system, provided the chickens can run outside for 4-5 hours every day.
1. Crushed grain 64, Dried green feed 5, Peanuts 21, Concentrate 10, Total 100 kg
2. Crushed grain 79, Dried green feed 10, Concentrate 11, Total 100 kg
3. Crushed grain 60, Crushed peanuts 40, Total 100 kg
4. Crushed grain 70, Crushed soybean 30, Total 100 kg
Cook soybeans and peanuts for twenty minutes and then dry them before mixing into the ration.
15.0 Chicken project management
Daily:
1. Feed and water the birds.
2. In the afternoon, clean both the feed and water troughs.
3. Collect the eggs.
4. Let the chickens out at 12 o'clock.
5. Lock the chickens up at night. Twice a week:
6. Rake over the deep litter and replace any wet litter.
7. Clean out nests and put in fresh nesting material.
Yearly:
1. Thoroughly clean out the house.
2. Take out the deep litter and use on a vegetable garden.
3. Put in fresh litter.
4. Sell the old chickens and replace with young chickens that have been either bought or reared in the village. Cull by selling or eating the laying stock at 18 months of age, i.e. after they have been laying eggs for 12 months. If chickens are kept longer than 18 months, it will cost more to feed them than the money the owner receives from the sale of eggs.
Time the replacement of his laying stock so that they will start laying eggs at the time that the layers have reached 18 months. To be ready at the right time, the replacement stock must be bought as day old chickens when the laying stock is 12 months old.
5. Make any necessary repairs to the house.
Commercial meat production
Use commercial poultry breeds because of the high cost of food. Get as many eggs as possible from the chickens by using good quality stock. Hybrid chickens can only be used commercially to produce meat or eggs. The eggs or chickens of commercial breeds must not be used for hatching or breeding. So commercial breeds must be replaced as existing stock become old. Hybrid stock is used for commercial poultry farming because their production is much higher than the ordinary pure breeds, e.g. White Leghorn.
Care of growing chickens
1. Make sure there is enough dry litter on the floor for the chickens to walk on. There should be no smell, because the dry litter will absorb the moisture in the wet droppings.
2. Make sure chickens have enough to eat. Start to use a bigger kind of feeder hung from the rafters and is raised as the chickens grow. It should be raised so that the top edge of the feeding tray is the same level as the shoulder of the chickens. For older chickens feeders should be set level with their shoulder height.
This feeder can be made from an oil drum that has been washed out or a box.
3. Make sure the chickens have enough water to drink with a coccidiostat added to it.
The 5 things needed in a good chicken house are dry, cool, safe, perches, enough space.
The sign of coccidiosis disease is blood in the droppings.
12 laying chickens need 4.4 m2.
Never use iron or plastic sheeting when making a chicken house. 
16.0 Broiler production, producing meat chickens
See diagram 50.6.7: Plan of house for broiler production
Most poultry meat production will be for the “live” market and will be sold through the village market. Meat chickens reach a marketable weight at 9-10 weeks. To increase profitability, sell all the chickens at the same time. So raise only the number of chickens that can be sold at the same time, e.g. 25-30 chickens. If you keep the chickens longer than 10 weeks, it could cost more to feed them than the extra money received from their sale. Broiler housing
A chicken needs a floor area of 0. 1 m2. Build the house with bush materials with a large roof overhang and surrounded by a deep drain to keep out any water. Throw the earth from the drain inside the house and compact it until it is very hard. This action raises the level of the floor to ensure that no water comes inside. Cover the floor with 15 cm of deep litter material. Put feed and water troughs in the house to allow 56 cm of feeding space per ten chickens and 28 cm of watering trough per ten birds. Broiler management
Use only meat strain chickens for meat production because they can produce more meat for how much feed eaten. If you buy unsexed chickens, you can raise both pullets and cockerels for meat production. Buy the chickens as day old chickens. Broilers must grow as much meat as possible in as short a time as possible. Feeding broilers differs from feeding pullets because broilers must be fed a high protein diet for the nine weeks it takes to raise them. Feed broilers a 20% protein medicated feed which has to be bought. Feed and water must be always available and must never run out. If their growth rate becomes slower, the result will be less profit for the farmer. After keeping broilers on this feed for the whole period, sell them when they reach 1, 6 kg live weight. Some chickens will grow faster and may be sold in the eighth week, but all chickens must be sold by the tenth week.
Daily management
1. Fill feed and water troughs three times a day.
2. Clean water troughs daily.
3. Rake over deep litter daily.
After each batch of chickens
1. Remove all deep litter and put on to a vegetable garden.
2. Thoroughly clean all feed and water troughs.
3. Spell (rest) the house for three weeks between batches of chickens.
17.0 Management and feeding of laying hens
The laying hen requires a 16% protein food and a well balanced ration called a layer ration. The following are some of the suitable feed mixes:
1. Feed mix: Grain (wheat, rice, corn (maize) or sorghum) mixed with poultry concentrate
All the necessary minerals, vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates are balanced when poultry concentrate is used, but it costs more than if you grow the feed plants.
Rations using imported concentrate and locally produced grains
-
 Starter / broiler
ration (20%) 		Grower
ration (15%)		 Layer
ration (16%)
Grain 70 kg 80 kg 71 kg
Poultry concentrate 30 kg 20 kg 29 kg
Total feed 100 kg 100 kg 100 kg
2. Feed mix: Use home grown soybeans and grain
The vitamin supplements are usually not expensive. Rations using locally grown feeds
-
 Starter / broiler
ration		 Grower
ration 		Layer
ration
Soybeans 30 kg 10 kg 20 kg
Meat meal 10 kg 10 kg 9 kg
Grain 60 kg 80 kg 71 kg
Vitamin
supplement		 40 g 40 g 40 g
Salt 225 g 225 g 225 g
3. Feed mix: Grow sweet potato and mix it with poultry concentrate
Sweet potato is very low in protein and the chickens will not grow or lay eggs if fed sweet potato only.
Feed needs for one chicken for the different ages:
Concentrate / sweet potato rations for different ages of poultry
The figure in the concentrate and sweet potato column is the amount of feed each chicken will eat for that period of its life.
Age of bird Concentrate
(kg)		 Sweet potato
(kg)		 Total
(kg)
0-6 weeks
(+ broiler ration)		 0.30 1.50 1.80
6-26 weeks 1.90 17.10 19.00
6-18 months 8.60 77.50 86.10
4. How much feed to give to ten chickens each day. The sweet potato is cooked and then mixed with the protein concentrate.
Feed needs for a 10 hen layer enterprise feeding concentrate and sweet potato
Age of Bird Concentrate Sweet Potato Total
0-6 weeks (+ broiler ration) 70 g 340 g 410 g
6-26 weeks 160 g 1.43 kg 1.59 kg
26-78 weeks 2.30 g 2.13 kg 2.36 kg
5. Feed consumption rates for grain rations 1
Week after hatching 100 chickens will eat
1st week
2nd week
3rd week
4th week 		4.50 kg feed
9.0 kg feed
13.5 kg feed
8.0 kg feed
6. Feed consumption rates for grain rations 2
Total Feed Consumption 100 chickens will eat
To 4th week
To 6th week
To 8th week
To 12th week
To 24th week
 45.4 kg feed
95.3 kg feed
163.4 kg feed
345.0 kg feed
908.0 kg feed
7. Spaces and roosts
_
 0-4 weeks
 4-10 weeks
 10-20 weeks
 Adult chicken 
Floor space
(m2 per bird)		 0.05 0.1 0.25 0.4
Feeding space
(m per 100 birds)		 1.8 3.0 4.26 6.0
Water space
(m per 100 birds)		 0.6 0.9 1.8 2.4
Roosts
(m per 100 birds)		 _
 9.0 15.3 18.0
Modern chicken rations contain every kind of food needed by the birds:
1. Energy food, e.g. wheat meal.
2. Protein food, e.g. fishmeal or meat meal. They may also contain extra parts of proteins called amino acids, e.g. lysine.
3. Vitamins, including vitamin D if the chickens cannot get sunshine.
4. Minerals.
5. Medicated rations, e.g. drugs to prevent coccidiosis disease.
1. "Chicken starter" for very young chickens contains a good energy food and about 21% protein for meat chickens or 20% protein for egg breed chickens. Chicken starter is so rich in protein that it is the most expensive to buy but it can be used for only the first four weeks then changed to "chicken finisher", or "grower ration".
2. “Chicken finisher”, or “grower ration” is used for growing meat chickens, called broilers. The protein percentage is about 18%. It can also be given to laying pullets but they are usually given a ration with less protein, e.g. 17%.
3. "Laying ration" is for laying hens and contains at least 16%  of protein.
4. If buying modern chicken rations for the first time, buy a small quantity of chicken starter to give the chickens a good start then change to local rations at 4 weeks of age. The starter ration should be medicated to prevent coccidiosis disease.
18.0 Timing of replacement stock
Cull (sell or dispose of) the laying stock at 18 months of age, i.e. after they have been laying eggs for 12 months. If chickens are kept longer than 18 months, it will cost more to feed them than the money  received from the sale of eggs. Time the replacement of laying stock so that they will start laying eggs when the layers have reached 18 months of age. As it takes a chicken 6 months, i.e. from day old to 26 weeks, to be raised before it starts to lay eggs, the replacement stock must be bought as day old chickens, when the laying stock that the owner has on his farm are 12 months of age. If he buys his replacement chickens at this time then they will start to lay eggs just as his present layers turn 18 months of age and so his cash income will not be interrupted: You can see from the table how to time the replacement stock to replace the old layers, without interrupting egg supply.
Start batch 1
 6 Months
 12 Months
 18 months
 _
 _
Day old chicks
 Start laying
 Buy replacements
 Cull layers
_
 _
_
 _
 Start batch 2

 6 Months
 12 Months

 18 Months
_
 _
 Replacement
day old chicks
Start
laying
 Buy replacements

 Cull
layers
_
 _
 _
 _
 Start batch 3 6 Months
_
 _
 _
 _
 Replacement
day old chicks		 Start laying
18.1 How long to keep layers
Hens may keep on laying well for a while but they will certainly go out of lay. After having a rest the hens will start laying again for a second year. However, in the second year the hens do not lay as many eggs as in the first year. Usually they lay between 60% and 75% of the first year of laying. However, it is best to keep the hens for a second laying season because they will not lay any small eggs in the second laying season and
if there has been a lot of Marek's disease this will have been mostly in young birds. Chickens more than one year old are less likely to die from Marek's disease. 
19.0 Management of deep litter
Deep litter is any dry material such as coffee mill hulls, rice hulls, peanut hulls, sawdust, dry leaves, wood shavings, finely chopped dry grass. When it is placed on the poultry house floor, it combines with the birds' droppings and undergoes a bacterial process which gives sanitary non-smelling conditions when handled correctly. This may sound like a lot of work for the project owner, however, very little work is required to look after it properly. There are three things that have to be remembered:
1. The shed must be kept dry. The roof must be rain proof and the overhang of the roof must be enough to keep the rain from blowing in. Drinking water must not spill onto the litter.
2. The shed must not be overcrowded. Note the floor space needs for various ages of stock. If overcrowded, litter becomes hard and disease could be introduced to the house.
3. Turn the litter once a week and rake over to stop it going hard and to mix the birds' droppings evenly.
Advantages of Deep Litter
1. Chickens burrow into the litter and cool themselves as the litter maintains a uniform below air temperature in hot weather.
2. Chickens burrow into the litter and warm themselves as the uniform litter temperature is above air temperature in cold weather and the litter acts as an insulation against the cold.
3. Chickens scratch in the litter which gives them something to do and so stops feather picking, egg eating, and gives them a “dust bath” which controls lice. Deep litter also provides some vitamin B12. The droppings combine with the litter and bacterial action ensures that no smell develops and no flies breed in the dry deep litter. Deep litter is a valuable fertilizer. One 3 m x 3m house with 25 hens will produce in one year 3/4 tonne of deep litter fertilizer. This will contain the equivalent of 112 kg ammonium sulfate, 100 kg superphosphate, 35 kg potassium, 5 kg magnesium 5 kg sodium 20 kg calcium plus trace elements. It is a valuable by-product of the poultry project.
20.0 Chicken diseases
Some diseases can kill chickens, e.g. coccidiosis and Marek's disease. Other diseases may not kill chickens but they cause them to produce less, e.g. Mycoplasmosis, Infectious bronchitis, and Newcastle disease. The following are important diseases.
20.1 Coccidiosis
It is caused by single celled parasites that live in the gut wall. Coccidiosis is spread when one chicken eats faecal material, droppings, from an infected chicken which contains small egg-like bodies called oocysts. Oocysts can remain alive in poultry sheds for more than a year. It is impossible to prevent this spread unless chickens are housed so that they have no contact with faeces. Affected chickens become depressed, lose condition and are very pale. The feathers are ruffled and the wings droop. There is usually diarrhoea and blood in the droppings. They may not eat very much and very often they die. The coccidiosis parasite needs moisture to become infective so the litter must be kept dry, ventilation must be good and the chickens should not be overcrowded. Effective live vaccines and drugs called coccidiostats are available. Coccidiosis may occur if the level of coccidiostat in the feed is too low, if the chickens are not eating enough or if the coccidiostat is withdrawn too early before immunity has developed. Put a coccidiostat in the drinking water for 4 to 6 weeks, then watch the chickens carefully in case a lot of blood appears in the droppings, that means the disease has started again.
20.2 Marek's disease
It is caused by a herpes virus that may result in death or severe production loss in both layer and meat chickens. Vaccination will reduce the losses. It causes changes in nerves and tumours in the major internal organs. It is shed from the feather follicles and spreads in fluff and dust, gaining entry when the chicken breathes infected dust particles. Once present in a flock, it spreads rapidly to unvaccinated poultry. Chickens between 10 and 24 weeks of age are the most susceptible. In the nervous form the chickens are unable to stand, become paralysed, waste away from lack of food and water and may become blind. In the visceral form grey-white tumours are found in the ovaries and other organs. The chickens may show signs of depression, paralysis, loss of appetite, loss of weight, anaemia (pale combs), dehydration (shrunken combs). Treatment is not effective. Diseased chickens should be removed from the flock and destroyed. Protection is obtained by buying chickens vaccinated either at day old or into 18-19 day old embryonated eggs (before hatching). Isolate vaccinated chicks during their first two weeks of life so that their immunity will develop. Rear chicks separately so that they are free from the infected fluff and dust of older birds. Make sure that you have a thorough clean out and disinfection of sheds and equipment between batches of chicks using a disinfectant which is effective against bacteria and viruses. Exposure of the sheds and runs to sunlight helps the disinfection process.
20.3 Chronic respiratory disease (CRD) (mycoplasmosis)
It occurs when chickens infected with Mycoplasma gallisepticum are stressed. The subsequent invasion by secondary bacteria causes the major damage to the bird. Outbreaks occur at times of stress, e.g. moving, chilling, vaccinating, beak trimming, worming, poor ventilation, damp litter and ammonia build up or in the presence of other diseases. The disease is introduced by infected carrier chickens or transport by persons who have handled CRD-infected birds. The chickens show sniffing, rattling, sneezing, coughing and wet noses with retarded growth in growing chickens and a production loss in hens, but deaths are few. Similar diseases are Coryza, Infectious bronchitis, and Fowl cholera. Antibiotics will help control the disease and minimize secondary bacterial complications, but do not control the disease completely. Suppliers of point of lay pullets can provide vaccinated pullets.
Mycoplasmosis, is caused by very small microorganisms called mycoplasma. These are breathed out into the air by diseased chickens and are breathed in by healthy chickens. Control this disease by keeping very young chickens apart from older birds. Then the microbes cannot reach them. If the chickens catch this disease, it will quickly go from one to the others. When the chickens have left this house, you must clean out the house and leave it empty for two weeks before you put any more chickens into it, This disease does not kill chickens very often, but it causes them to lay fewer eggs and to grow slowly.
20.4 Lymphoid leucosis
It also causes tumours in organs, but does not cause paralysis. It is usually seen in chickens over 16 weeks of age and is a disease of the nervous system. It occurs more in older stock and growing  pullets than in young birds. There is no cure for Leucosis. A vaccine has been developed which will lower the incidence of the disease. The chickens should be vaccinated by hatcheries at day old. The chickens appear quite healthy but will have lost control and use of their legs. You can eat these chickens as the meat is not affected. Chickens that get Leucosis will not recover and should be destroyed.
20.5 Fowl pox
It is spread by mosquitoes. It occurs mostly in chickens from 1 week to 10 weeks of age. The eyes, beak and head will be covered with scabs. Most of the chickens will recover from the disease, but their growth rate slows. Chickens bought from a hatchery should be vaccinated against fowl pox as vaccination is the only cure. There is no drug treatment.
20.6 Vitamin deficiencies
These deficiencies rarely occur in chickens that are free ranged or fed a balanced ration. However if the feed is very old then some of the vitamins such as Vitamin A may be deficient. You can feed only fresh bought feed, add 40 g /100 kg of feed of a vitamin supplement to the ration and allow the chickens to free range for 1-2 hours per day or add fresh green feed to the chicken ration. Mineral deficiencies will rarely occur in chickens that are free ranging and chickens that are fed a balanced ration. If calcium deficiency in laying hens occurs, put crushed seashells or coral or limestone in a special feed box in the corner of the chicken shed. Protein deficiencies are common if there are no natural high protein grain or plants available. The deficiencies cause a very slow growth rate of young chickens and sometimes death. In older birds, the breastbone is very pronounced and the chickens are very thin. Later the chicken becomes very lazy and weak, walks with great difficulty and will die. Feed a high protein feed, such as meat meal, or poultry concentrate with the sweet potato or other energy type feed being fed. Also, you can boil some fish and mix with the other feeds. If soybeans, peanuts, mung beans and snake beans are available, mix these grains with the other feed.
20.7 Botulism or food poisoning
It usually occurs more with ducks than chickens. It is caused by bacteria growing in stale wet feed that has gone putrid. The chickens will sit down and extend their necks out as far as possible and will be very drowsy. Death occurs in 1-4 days. If the chickens are fed outside, thoroughly clean out feed troughs after every feeding. Change the site of feeding regularly, so that the ground under the feed trough doesn't become saturated with feed. There is no cure.
20.8 Fatty liver of laying hens
It occurs only to chickens confined to laying cages. The chickens are confined to a small area and so get very little exercise. High producing hybrid chickens are more prone to fatty liver than purebred stock, e.g. Rhode Island Red. There is very little that can be done for fatty liver as the first thing that the farmer knows about it is the chicken has died. 
21.0 Costs, returns and profits
See also 6.9.20.0: Understanding the records
If people keep some village hens or modern hens so they can sell the eggs, then they must know how to find out if they have made a profit. Students should be shown how to do this.
1. Costs
The two kinds of costs are establishment costs and production costs.
1. Establishment costs are costs you pay for things that will last for years. It would not be a good idea to take all these costs away from the returns for one year. Instead you can make a guess at how many years these things will last, say 5 years, and then divide the cost by 5 for working out one year's costs.
Establishment costs for egg project:
costs of squared timber for cages, $9. 00
cost of lock and key for door, $1.10
 cost of oil drum for feeder, $1.00
Total $11.10
2. Production costs are those that you must pay each year. For example each year you must pay for some Amprolium or other drug to stop coccidiosis.
Production costs for one year:
$9.40 for 500 grams of Sulfaquinoxiline drug (enough for 5 years) $1.80
- one dozen hybrid layer chickens at 70 c. each $8.40
- Freight costs $2. 00
- 25 kg. of chicken starter feed at $14 per 50 kg. $7.00
$19. 20
2. Returns
This is the money received when you sell eggs in a market. you must always keep a record of the returns so you know how much money you have received.
3. Profits
Profits = returns - costs
3.1 Returns
Sold 27 dozen eggs at $1.10 per dozen $29.70
3.2 Less Costs
1. Establishment costs / 5 = $11.10 / 5 = $2.2  +
2. Production costs $19.20
Total costs $21.40 21.40
Profit for one year ($29.70, $21.40) = $10.50
Working out profit in this way may indicates:
1. Profits increase more hens are bought and more eggs are sold.
2. No profit is possible if less than 200 eggs are sold.
2.6.1 Hatching an egg
See diagram 50. 11: Parts of an egg
1. Keep records of the egg during the 21 days to hatching. Measure and record the weight and length of the egg on days 3, 7, 14 and 21. Use a strong light to see the developing chick. They call this candling because formerly people used a candle to see if the chicks were alive and developing properly. Note the heart of the developing chick already beating by day 7. Note the change in the weight of the egg but no change in the length of the egg. The mass changed because reserve materials were broken down into carbon dioxide and water by respiration. The carbon dioxide and water vapour could diffuse though tiny pores in the shell causing the loss of weight.
2.6.2 Measure the eggs
See diagram 50. 6. 5: Egg callipers
Weigh a fertilized egg and record in a table. Measure the length of the egg with a pair of calliper and record in the table. Record the weight and length of the egg each day. Note whether the weight changes and whether the length changes. Weight decreases how is it lost? Food is broken down during respiration to carbon dioxide and water and these can both diffuse through the egg membranes and the shell to cause weight loss. At the end of three days remove one egg and crack it carefully. Put the contents into a shallow saucer. A three day embryo will usually show the heart already beating. It may continue to beat for half an hour. Remove an egg at day 7, day 14 and day 20 to study the development of the embryo. Leave eggs for 21 days to hatch. When the first cracks in the egg appear at day 21, the chicken is about to hatch. The chicken cracks the egg with its egg tooth, a hard lump on its beak. Find the egg tooth in a day 20 chicken.
2.6.3 Incubators, brooders
1. Make a cardboard box incubator
See diagram 50. 6. 3.1: Simple electric incubator
Use a large and small cardboard box. Cut one end from the small box. Cut a 15 cm2 window in a side of the large box. Cut a slit in the top of the smaller box and suspend an electric lamp in it by a long electric cord. Put the small box inside the larger box and pack newspaper between them. The open end of the small box must fit against the side of the large box in which you cut the window. Put a thermometer in the box so that you can read it through the glass window.
2. Make a Styrofoam cool box incubator
See diagram 50. 6. 3.2: Warm brooder, electric incubator | See diagram 50. 6. 3.3: Brooder drinker, feeder box
Make a hole in the side of a Styrofoam box to fit a 40 watt light bulb socket. Put aluminium foil on the bottom of the box. Put a piece of wire mesh across the box. Make air holes in the sides and in the lid of the incubator. Also, make a hole in the Styrofoam for a thermometer. Maintain a constant temperature of 38oC in the incubator for 21days. Use different sized bulbs and change the newspaper to regulate the temperature. Put a dish of water in the incubator. Put 12 fertile eggs in the incubator. After three days remove one egg and carefully crack it open into a dish. Study the beating heart. It may continue to beat for half an hour. Remove an egg every three days and observe the development of the embryo. Leave eggs for 21 days to hatch.
2.6.4 Development of chicken embryo
1. Hold a light close to the egg so that you can see through it. As the chicken develops, see its outline or shadow. Put the egg inside the incubator and close the lid. The temperature should be 40oC. Roll the eggs every 12 hours to stop the yolk sticking to the shell. 2. Study an unfertilized egg. Put a flat dish or Petri dish on black paper. Break open a hen's egg. Note the yellow yolk and the clear part. you commonly call the clear part the "white" of an egg because it turns white when cooked. On the yolk see a small white patch. In the centre of this white patch, too small to see with the eyes, is a nucleus. This is where the chicken starts to develop. 3. Development of the chick in the egg
Before egg laying:
Fertilization
Division and growth of living cells
Segregation of cells into groups of tissues
Between laying and incubation: No growth, stage of inactive embryonic life
During incubation:First day
16 hours: First sign of resemblance to a chick embryo
18 hours: Appearance of alimentary tract
20 hours: Appearance of vertebral column
21 hours: Beginning of formation of nervous system
22 hours: Beginning of formation of head
24 hours: Beginning of formation of eye
Second day:
25 hours: Beginning of formation of heart
35 hours: Beginning of formation of ear
42 hours: Heart begins to beat
Third day
60 hours: Beginning of formation of nose
62 hours: Beginning of formation of legs
64 hours: Beginning of formation of wings
Fourth Day: Beginning of formation of tongue
Fifth Day: Formation of reproductive organs and differentiation of sex
Sixth Day: Beginning of formation of beak
Eighth Day: Beginning of formation of feathers
Tenth Day: Beginning of hardening of beak
Thirteenth Day: Appearance of scales and claws
Fourteenth Day: Embryo gets position suitable for breaking the shell
Sixteenth Day: Scales, claws, and beak becoming firm and horny
Seventeenth Day: Beak turns towards the air cell
Nineteenth Day: Yolk sac begins to enter body cavity
Twentieth Day: Yolk sac completely drawn into body cavity
Twenty-first Day: Hatching of chick
2.6.5 Record chicken development
See diagram 50.6.5.1: Feathering record
Weigh a newly hatched chicken and record the weight result in a table. Use callipers to measure the height of the chicken from the top of its head to its feet. Keep a chicken diary to record the weight, height and behaviour of the chicken each day for the first three weeks. Describe the change in colour or shape of its feathers. Describe how the chicken walks when it first hatches and how this changes later. Describe its "cheep"cry when newly hatched and how its voice changes later. Describe how it pecks at its food, and drinks its water. Record any other observations about the chicken. Record changes in the mass of the chicken from day 1to day 20. Plot a graph of the changes in weight. Plot a graph for the changes in the height of the chicken.
2.6.6 Sexing a chicken
For "sexing the chicken", turn the chicken over in the palm of the hand with its head is pointing towards you. Try to find the opening underneath its tail. Use the thumbs to fold down the feathers. Fold the skin down around the opening but do not press too hard. If the chicken is a male, you can probably see the penis like a small piece of thread. When you cannot see a penis, then the chicken is a female.
2.6.7 Care for chickens
See diagram 50. 6. 3.2: Warm brooder
A hen sitting on eggs keeps them warm. When the chickens hatch, they huddle under the hen for warmth and protection. If no mother hen, keep the chickens warm with a heater in a brooder. This is a box with a heater or light. The heater or light keeps the chickens warm. Give the chickens food and clean water. Use shallow dishes for the food and water. At first give the chickens a handful of chicken mash. Each day, add more food to the dish each day and provide clean water.
2.6.8 Castrate capon raising the chicks as a eunuch mother
A cock can be a mother. In a village in the north of Anhui Province in China they ran an enterprise for raising chicks. The peasants could use the castrated capon to protect and raise the chicks. People bought the chicks from the hatchery. They gave rice liquor to the castrated capon and the chicks in the same roost. Later, the chicks, which had never seen their mother were getting impressions of the image, movement, sound and temperature of the castrated capon. The chicks jostled forcefully under the wings of the castrated capon as if in their mother's bosom. The castrated capon clucked like a hen. Later it protected the chicks and taught them to peck, call, defence themselves and preserve heat. The effect was better than a hen. Peasants sum up their experience and think it had three merits:
1. The castrated capon not only has large body and many feathers, but also can raise 40 - 50 chicks, as many as two hens do.
2. It can raise chickens for a long time. A hen raises the chicks only for a month, but the castrated capon can do it for half a year until the chicks grow up and weigh 1 - 2 kg.
 3. The castrated capon is more daring, fiercer and more thoughtful than cats and will not let cats get close to the chicks. They can even wrestle with an eagle so they can raise the chicks' survival rate.
History
These teaching materials were originally written and illustrated by MrJ. A. Sutherland, Faculty of Education, University of New England, Armidale, Australia and later edited by Dr J. Elfick, School ofEducation, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.