I was visiting the market recently and noticed that some farms were eating too much chicken. Let's talk about the reasons for the increase in feed intake of laying hens.

Energy issues

Feed intake of laying hens is affected by feed energy. In general, the energy requirement of laying hens averages 300 kcal/day. If the energy of the feed is increased by adding soybean oil within a certain range, the feed intake of the chicken will be reduced. Conversely, feed energy decreases and flock feed intake increases. The cost of laying hens has remained high this year, largely because the price of corn, the main energy raw material in feed, has risen by nearly 50%, causing farmers to complain. Rising soybean oil prices are also making things worse for farmers. In order to reduce the cost of breeding, some farmers could not resist the temptation of low prices and chose to purchase low-priced corn. Generally, low-priced corn has high moisture content or low test density, which will greatly reduce the energy level of corn, making it lower than the normal feed use standard. Feed energy is insufficient, chickens will increase feed intake to meet their own energy needs.

Physical problems

When the laying hens are in the wild, every spring, the laying hens will increase their feed intake, reserve nutrients for the new production cycle, and survive the harsh summer. Although after years of research and exploration by genetic breeders and the improvement of the feeding environment, the natural egg production cycle of laying hens has changed with the seasons, but some wildness is still retained in the genetic factors of chickens, which also affects the feed intake of some chickens in spring. One of the reasons for the sudden surge.

intestinal problems

As temperatures rise, the populations of various bacteria, parasites, and other pathogens begin to increase. The activities of coccidia and tapeworms make problems such as bloody stools and diarrhea increasingly prominent. Therefore, deworming in spring has become an indispensable link in laying hen farming. The climate in spring is changeable. The temperature has just risen for a few days, when a burst of cold air hits, it turns sharply down again. At the same time, the outdoor temperature difference between day and night is large, and chickens are prone to cold stress. It can be said that spring is the most difficult season to control the chicken house environment. On the one hand, cold stress increases the energy needed by the chickens to resist the stress.