Poultry Signals:
Interactive Poultry Farming based on
Focus on Chickens
By: Koos van Middlekoop
Sponsored By:
Focus on chickens
Poultry keeping is all about your chickens, job satisfaction
and a decent profit.
Comfortable housing and looking after them properly is
what you want and what they need
Bird focussed poultry farming is about to house and care
for chickens in the best possible way
Understanding chickens better is a key to improve results,
both in money as in satisfaction
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Important questions
Am I getting the best out of everything?
How do I know when the chickens disagree?
3
Take a step back/have a break
Many people are so involved in their farm that they no
longer notice irregularities because they are so used to
seeing them.
Open your mind to new things
Be critical and don’t be afraid to change
4
Train to look and see
Look with awareness.
Take a step back
Think about the signals your birds are showing
It takes skill to notice signals before the
consequences reveal themselves
5
Seeing more
Seeing more by looking more closely
If you look only at technical information
(laying percentage, growth or feed and water consumption)
You run the risk of missing important signals and being
overtaken by events
Do pick up the signals from the chickens themselves
6
Looking more closely
Start observing the whole flock
How are they spread out in the floor space?
Are they avoiding certain places?
Try to spot differences between birds
Are they uniform?
Put a chair in the house and sit on it for a few minutes to
observe birds
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Take your time
8
Invite others to limit farm blindness
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Share your opinion
10
Open your mind for new things
Pick up the signals
and
Act accordingly
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Using the signals
1. What am I seeing, hearing, smelling or feeling?
What is the signal?
2. Why is this happening?
What is the explanation?
3. What should I do?
Can I leave it or should I take action?
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UNO (‘you know’)
Sometimes you encounter things you don’t
immediately understand
UNO = Unclassified Notable Observations
I will give an example
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What do you observe?
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Yes it is true:
A catllebeast consuming a rabbit
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What does it mean?
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What did you observe?
Again:
Two vegetarian animals grazing at the heathland
consuming rabbit corpses
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What does it mean?
Two vegetarian animals
grazing at the heathland
consumed rabbit corpses
as a response to
phosphorus deficiency
Source: PhD study from Wallis de Vries, NL
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Listen to your chickens
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Not only this way
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“Chicken language”
Understanding “chicken language“ is a key factor
in improving poultry management
Chickens can’t talk so how do you communicate?
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Learning chicken language
Step 1: Learn how to observe your chickens
(what do I notice?)
Step 2: Learn to understand your observation
(What does it mean?)
Step 3: Learn to translate your observation
(what should I do?)
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Signals from the flock
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What do
What does
youit notice?
mean?
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What will be the problem?
• After one week?
Wet litter
• After two weeks?
Foot pad lesions
• Could it be prevented?
Yes
How?
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What do you do?
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What
Whatwilldo
beyou
the notice?
problem?
27
Spreading after placing
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Spreading out well within 24 hrs
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But if not?
• Suppose your chickens prefer laying
towards the wall?
• Why they do so?
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Look - Think - Act
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Looking and measuring
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Sampling, but how?
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Not well dressed
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Something missing
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What would you do?
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What is the
Lack signal?
of Salt
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Walking males
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It isn’t just learning chicken talk
Keep in mind that everything in life is mutual and
interactive.
So it is also teaching.
+
Or should I say: training?
I prefer to use the concept of “Interactive Management”
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Signals from the droppings
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Shit or info?
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What kind of manure is this?
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Good or bad?
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What does it mean?
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Good or Bad?
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What are you looking at?
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Grade A!
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Signal from the dropping pit
Chickens don’t like draft or cold places.
Have a look at the distribution of the manure in the
dropping pit.
The distribution shows whether the birds are avoiding
certain places
An uneven distribution is a signal that something is wrong
with the ventilation/air inlets
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Check the floor
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Use your hands
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Conclusion?
Squeeze the shit
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Signal from the bird
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Which chicken do you prefer?
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What do you think?
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What does it mean?
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What is the signal?
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Not a happy one
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Your opinion about this hen?
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Frame of reference
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What about this one?
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Inspect individual hens
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Feel and think
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Molting phase
Check the molting phase during rearing
Why????
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Molting fase is an important signal
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Whatthe
Note domoltingfase
you note?
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Ready for egg production?
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Signal from the egg
The egg, including shell damage provides of a lot of
information about
• the rearing period
• the hen’s genetic make -up
• light program
• disease
• quality of the nests
• egg collection system and its use
• etcetera
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Idendify and classify
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?????
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Two different signals
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Signal of ???
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Again two different signals
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Why laid on the floor ???
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Signal from the egg
Membraneous eggs laid about 4 hours after oviposition and due to that
always lost in the dropping pit
Extra calcified egg are laid about 28 hours after oviposition and due to
that laid on the floor/slats
In picking floor eggs check whether it is a normal smooth shell egg or a
rough extra calcified egg
Be aware
Normal floor egg can be hatched, but are a risk of contamination
Extra calcified eggs will never hatch
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At the end: Take home message
“Listen” to your chickens
• Learn to observe
• Learn to understand
• Learn to translate your observation
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At the end: Take home message
Last but not least:
Enjoy working with chickens
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Or didn’t
Thanks you?
for listening
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