Learn to Keep Poultry
Course Code: BAG208 | Nominal Duration: 100 hours
- Choose appropriate breeds for different situations
- Better manage, house, feed and care for your birds
- Advise others
This is a course for anyone who wants to get more serious about managing poultry - as a pet owner, hobby farmer or something more serious.
- Raise poultry at home.
- Understand breeds for meat, eggs, or which make great pets.
- Learn their daily care needs.
- Identify seasonal changes in your birds.
- Become a breed specialist.
- Know nutrition, feeding and watering for health.
- Confidently identify disease and injury.
This course is ideal for commercial farmers, hobby farmers, poultry enthusiasts or anyone interested in keeping birds at home.
What's Covered in this Course?
Eight lessons as outlined below.
Lesson 1. Introduction, Terminology and Breeds
- History of Poultry
- Terminology
- Contract Growing
- Regulations
- Management Factors
- Small Scale Production
- Breeds
- Classifying Fowls (Egg Laying Breeds, Meat or Table Birds, Dual Purpose Breeds)
- Cross Breed Poultry
- Sex Linkage
- Brooders
- Skeletal System
- Poultry Husbandry (Stock Selection, Feeding, Watering, Housing, Health)
- Turkeys
- Geese
- Ducks
Lesson 2. Poultry Nutrition
- Digestive System (Gullet, Crop, Proventriculus, Gizzard, Intestine, Caecum, etc)
- Nutrient Sources (Carbohydrate, Protein, Minerals etc)
- Rationing
- Palatability
- The End Product
- Modern Feed Requirements
- Phase Feeding
- Limited Feeding
- Consumption Feeding
Lesson 3. Diseases
- Avoiding Stress
- Viral diseases
- Bacterial diseases
- Mycoplasmosis, fungal and protozoan disease
- Non-infectious diseases
Lesson 4. Layers
- Extensive (free-range) System
- Semi-Intensive System
- Intensive Systems
- Housing
- Deep Litter System
- Feeders
- Battery Units
- Feeding the Laying Hen
- Replacing the Flock
Lesson 5. Broilers
- Caponising
- Brooding Period
- Feeding Broilers (Starter Period, Finisher Period)
- Housing
- Hygiene and Health
Lesson 6. Incubation - The natural method
- The artificial method (using incubators)
- Selecting Eggs
- Storing Hatching Eggs
- Turning Eggs
- Managing a Incubator (Temperature, Humidity, Testing, Hatching)
- Reasons for Poor Hatchability
Lesson 7. Brooding
- Heating
- The canopy brooder
- The infra-red lamp
- The battery brooder
- The hay box brooder
- Feeders
- Drinkers
- Floor Space
- Rearing
- Problems during rearing
Lesson 8. Record Keeping, economics and Marketing
- Growth Records
- Egg Production records
- Small Scale Business
- Compatible Ventures (Manure, etc)
- Preparing a Farm Business plan
- Finance
- Land Management
- Analysing the Market place
- Developing a Marketing Plan
What You Will Learn!
- Choosing poultry breeds for different situations.
- Management techniques for feeding, health, housing and more.
- Managing layers for eggs.
- Management poultry as broilers.
- Management techniques for breeding and incubation.
- Managing brooding poultry.
- Management strategies for a poultry business.
Who should study this course
- Parents, home owners or hobby farmers who wish to keep a few birds at home as pets and for eggs.
- Breeders, retailers or others who supply birds, feed, cages or other needs to poultry owners.
- Service professionals such as veterinary assistants, who wish to learn more about caring for poultry.
- Anyone else with a passion for, or business interest in poultry.