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ssmusokehttp://ssmusoke.comI am a technologist at heart working with software development teams deliver custom software for clients. In previous roles in other organizations, I have assisted customers identify user and business needs, defined technical specifications to meet those needs, evaluated vendor capability and supervised implementation of complex IT systems. I am passionate about growing the technology community in Uganda and on the continent. I believe in the mantra “Coded in Africa, for Africans by Africans”. My emphasis during this journey is to ensure that women are equal participants in the African technology revolution.
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Layer Health Management

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One of the biggest challenges facing poultry farmers is ensuring that the productivity of the birds stays high without having to spend alot on drugs to maintain immunity of the birds. Like all other businesses the factors controlling profitability are keeping productivity high and operational expenses low. The major expenses are feed, labor (cannot be altered much without significant capital investment), and medication.

The medication regime we are following is two fold:

  1. Added to feeds – regular
    • Acidomix
    • Methionine
    • Toxen Binder (Toxibab)
  2. Immunity booster – monthly with 1 day spacing
    • Deworming in drinking water 
    • New Castle in drinking water 
    • Vitamin booster for 3 days 

This helps us maintain immunity levels to lengthen the period of productivity while keeping costs within range.

What do you do to maintain the health of your layers? 

Eggs – Eggs – Eggs Galore

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Yay!!! On May 25, the first egg was laid. It was a day of celebration and joy since our efforts were finally bearing fruit. The sad thing is that during the next 3 weeks we lost 5 birds, which were trampled to death as they struggled to find a corner to lay. 

We have now fixed the issue and the birds are getting used to the hatchery boxes “bibikiro” in the local language, and as of June 4 (USA Independence day) we are achieving 90% productivity. 

Dietwise even if the birds are laying they are still on growers mash till end of July, 2 months of productivity, to ensure they grow and develop producing for much longer. 

For now we are ramping up advertisement and growing the market for the eggs 

New Drinking Containers

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Well this is somewhat overdue, but we have finally made the shift from the white drinking containers (which had to be cleaned and refilled every 2 hours) to locally made ones from jerrrycans which take about 10 liters each and can last for most of the day with a coupla refills. 

The old containers used to take about 120liters of water per refill for all of them with the largest taking 10l and the others about 4liters, however the more commonly used ones used to dry up within an hour or so. With all the chickens consuming about 180liters of water a day this made for quite a bit of tiresome manual labor …

Also interesting is that the chickens took to the new containers instantly which was also a good thing…

As always photos below 

Before

After 

De-beaking Completed

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Finally we came to that time 12 weeks, when we have to debeak the birds. It was a tough process requiring careful cutting of the top beak (easy) followed by the lower one (can be slightly longer) which is more complicated because the tongue tends to get in the way. Cutting the tongue is fatal to the bird. 

2 days before the de-beaking, we de-wormed the birds to ensure that the antibiotics would be fully absorbed and it would be the last chance to do so before eggs were laid. 

The first two days after de-beaking were the toughest as it was evident that the process was very traumatic to the birds, as they are quiet (probably in pain) and docile (wonder whether its the medication) … They are slowly recovering and getting back into shape. 

The water consumption which had dropped to 60 litres for 900 birds, is now steadily climbing back to pre-debeaking levels of 120litres per day.

As always a few photos: