Vital Feeds Farm Guides

Broiler water consumption in winter drops quietly, and feed intake follows it. A healthy flock drinks about 1.6 to 1.8 kg of water for every 1 kg of feed at 21 degrees C. If the shed is cold, the lines are stale or the drinkers are too high, birds drink less, eat less and grow slower. Check water first, every morning. Why does broiler water consumption change in winter? Check the drinker line and water every morning in winter. Because cold shifts how birds behave. Chicks crowd under the brooder, walk less to the drinker and sip less. Water that sits in pipes overnight turns very cold, and pipes that run through a heated shed can turn warm. Both hurt intake. Aviagen says water use and the water to feed ratio should be measured daily , because a change from the flock's normal is the earliest warning you will get. Many farmers watch the feeder and forget the drinker. In winter this is a costly habit, since a bird that drinks less cannot digest and use feed well. How much water sh...

For fish feeding in winter, let the pond decide. When the water cools, fish eat less and digest slowly, so cut the meal size, feed at midday and stop if fish do not come up. Check four things before every meal: water temperature, how fish behave, leftover feed and morning oxygen. Why do fish eat less in winter? Fish are cold-blooded. Their body temperature follows the water, so appetite and digestion slow down as the pond cools. Feed that the fish cannot eat or digest ends up in the water, and rotting feed uses up oxygen. Mississippi State University Extension, writing about recreational pond fish, advises to reduce the feeding rate to about one-fourth of the previous summer rate as winter approaches and not to feed in very cold water. That page covers bream and bass, not Punjab carp or tilapia, so treat the one-fourth figure as a guide and watch your own pond. What is the daily go or no-go check? Run this before each meal. It takes about five minutes. Check Go (feed a small me...

If your layers are laying less in winter, check light before feed. Shorter days switch egg production down, and a broken light schedule makes it worse. Walk the shed once at dusk and once at dawn, and check five things: light hours, bulb brightness, power cuts, feed and water. Most winter drops start there. Light, feed and water checks come first when layers lay less in winter. Why are layers laying less in winter? Daylight is the main driver. The Food and Agriculture Organization explains that decreasing day length slows egg production in laying hens, and that supplementary lighting only works when the electricity supply is regular and reliable. It also warns that breaks in the extra light can make the drop worse. Cold plays a smaller part. A hen that is warm enough, with full feeders and clean water, can still lay well on short days. A hen that is cold, thirsty or sitting in a dark shed will not. That is why a layer egg production drop in winter often looks sudden on a farm tha...

Broiler shed ventilation in winter should never stop completely. A closed, warm shed traps moisture and ammonia, and the litter turns wet. Keep a small, steady flow of fresh air high above the birds, check the shed at night, and keep humidity between 55 and 65 percent. Dry litter and gentle fresh air matter more than a sealed, warm shed. Why does broiler shed ventilation in winter matter, even in a warm shed? Many farmers close every curtain in the first cold nights. The shed feels warm, so it feels safe. But birds breathe out water all day, and the litter adds more. In a sealed shed that water has nowhere to go. Wet litter then releases ammonia. Ammonia burns the eyes and airways, and the birds eat less and grow slower. A shed that feels cosy to you can be hard on the flock. The aim is not a hot shed. The aim is clean, dry, steady air. What is minimum ventilation in plain words? Minimum ventilation means bringing in just enough fresh air to push out extra moisture and ammonia in...

For buffalo winter feeding in Punjab, plan for a green fodder gap in December and January. Keep silage or hay in store, feed concentrate by milk yield (about 1 kg for every 2 to 2.5 litres), and keep clean water in front of the animal all day. Write each buffalo's milk down every day. Plan the December and January fodder gap before it starts. When does the gap hit buffalo winter feeding on a Punjab farm? A paper on feed resources in Punjab , published in Livestock Research for Rural Development, says green fodders are short "during cold seasons (December-January)" and in the hot months of June and July. The same paper says the fodder supply is one third less than the actual need. It was published in 2005, so read that figure as a long pattern, not as this year's count. For your own farm the message is simple. The gap is not a surprise. It comes every year, so the plan has to be ready before it starts. What should winter fodder for buffalo look like month by month...

Switching pullets to layer feed should follow body weight and the first eggs, not the calendar alone. Layer feed carries 3 to 4 percent calcium, which young birds do not need. Keep pullets on grower feed until they are close to lay, then change over in steps across about 10 days. Weigh before you change feed, not after. Why is switching pullets to layer feed early a risk? The University of Georgia Extension poultry team is direct about this. A layer diet should contain 3 to 4 percent calcium and should only be fed to birds that are laying. They add that feeding it to a young, developing pullet can result in bone problems, and they treat pullets of about 1 to 18 weeks as birds that need a pullet feed. The reason is simple. A growing pullet is building bone and body frame. A laying hen is building egg shells every day. The two jobs need different amounts of calcium, and the wrong feed at the wrong age costs you either bone strength or shell quality. When is the right time to switch...