Poultry Houses

from 2000 birds - 40 000 birds

Cycle Break Down

Need to clean out your poultry house at the end of a cycle?

Let our team of experts do it for you. We will strip all of the equipment out of your poultry house, clean it and then come back and re assemble the poultry equipment.

MAINTAINING A POULTRY SYSTEM

Daily – To be done before switching on feeding system

Alignment – Troughs, corners and drives units

1.Check alignment of troughs
All the troughs should be lined up in a single straight line. Stand at the beginning of the line and ensure that there are no kinks or bends.
Get down on your hands and knees at the height of the trough line and look down the line – the troughs should be the same height along the length.
2. Corners
Troughs should enter the corner in a straight line.
All corners must form perfect right angles.
3. Check that all couplers are secure and have no bends or kinks.

Trough clearing and Cock excluders

1. Walk down the length of every trough and look for debris. Especially look for stones that have been thrown up by the birds. If a stone is dragged into a corner or drive unit the chain will break and your corner unit or drive unit will be damaged.
2. Check that the cock excluders are secure and firm. If the chain hooks a cock excluder, the chain will break.
3. Check for stone and debris.
4. Remember to close the clean out trough cover after cleaning the track
5. Look for birds stuck in the trough and at the corners, bins and drive units.

Chain Tension

1. Check the tension of the chain in the middle of each line unit.
The chain should not pull higher than the top of the trough – using almost full strength. If it is higher – remove links. If it lower – add links.
2. Check the chain tension on either side of every drive unit – the tension should be the same.
1. Check for stones and debris.

Drive Unit Maintenance

1. Tighten all nuts using a number 4 Allen key.
2. Ensure the sprocket is straight and tight.
3. Make sure that the shear pin clamp is NOT TO TIGHT. This clamp sits over the shear pins, the shear pin sprocket and the shear pin collar. The clamp must not be so tight that it grips the collar and the sprocket that they cannot move independently. This is a common problem causing chains to break often. The clamp is only there to hold the shear pins in place.
IF IT IS TOO TIGHT THE SHEAR PINS WILL NOT SHEAR AND THE CHAIN WILL BREAK INSTEAD.
4. Use only 2 or 3 shear pins. 4 is usually too many.
5. Check for stones and debris.
6. Check teeth on sprocket for wear.
7. Wipe down the drive unit with Q20 oil and grease regularly. Remove any rust.

Corners

1. Check all nuts and tighten if needed using a number 19 spanner.
2. Check and tighten shaft assembly. (nut on underside of corner)
3. Check wheel and ensure it is parallel to the bottom of the corner unit
4. Check for stones and debris.
5. Check that the trough enters the corners in a straight lie.
6. Check that the troughs are at perfect right angles.

Bins

1. Check that the feed slide adjustment is correct – SLIDE MUST NOT TOUCH CHAIN.
2. Check that hopper bin height is the same as the trough height.
3. Check for debris and stones.

Drinking System

1. Always check that the drinkers are not leaking at any of the joints.
2. Wash the drinkers at least three times a week.
3. Always make sure that the drinker heights are set correctly to match the bird height.
4. Ensure that the ballast is always filled with clean water.
5. Be aware that there is two shut-off valves for each drinker.
6. When doing maintenance on drinkers ensure that water supply is switched off.
7. Make sure all the drinker water levels are set correctly as per your standards.

Curtain and winching systems

1. DO NOT ALLOW CURTAINS TO DROP WITHOUT CONTROL. Wind the curtain down slowly whilst looking at the curtain for potential problems and hooks.
2. When winding the curtain up the operator should be looking at the curtain for potential problems and hooks. Do not force the winch if you hit an obstacle.
3. Keep the winch and main pulleys well greased.
4. Check the small pulleys for wear and damage.

Cross auger and tip scale

1. Calibrate scale at least once a week.
2. Always ensure that the feed is free of all obstacles.
3. Do not run the cross auger with out feed, it causes unnecessary wear and tear.
4. Always check that the shut-offs are closed or opened in the correct houses.
5. If the cross auger is making an unfamiliar noise switch it off ASAP.
6. Never leave the auger unattended while running.
7. Do regular spot checks on the power head to ensure that there is no unnecessary wear and tear.
8. Always check that the correct shut off gate on the silo is opened before transferring feed.

Monthly

1. Bushes.
2. Bearings.
3. Wear plates.
4. Corners rails.
5. Drive unit power shoes.
6. V belts on Auger power head.
7. Apply grease to the grease nipple at least once a month
8. Check teeth on all sprockets – 13 tooth, 15 tooth, 30 tooth.
9. Pulleys.
10 . Winches.

Warning Signals

1. Unusual Sounds.
2. Loud sounds.
3. Troughs pulling out of line.
4. Unusual vibrations or excessive vibrations.

Preferred Method for switching system on: Hands up method

You will need 5 people to switch your system on. (2 people if they are well trained and experienced)

Station one man at each corner of the house (observers). One man at the DB board (operator) – with his hand on the kill switch.

Each man should know the signal for each line:-

One arm up – line 1
Two arms up – line 2
Arms outstretched to side – line 3

All observers start with arms down.
System is started by operator.
If a problem is seen the observer immediately gives the signal relating to the the line and the operator switches that line off.

A smooth running system requires daily maintenance.
A small problem not attended to immediately can cause a major problem very quickly. This will result in down time at critical stages and in turn result in bird disruption and expensive, and time consuming repairs.

Water Usage and Quality

While most of you would agree that we have about beat the water quality horse to death, I still think we have as much to learn about the topic as we think already know. For instance, does the flavour of water impact consumption? Before this week, I was a firm believer that as long as water wasn’t bitter or full of fouling bacterial growth (mainly the iron and sulphur loving bacteria) no excess of sanitizer, birds were probably pretty tolerant of the taste. However, I am learning there is more to bird’s sense of taste for liquids The final convincing factor that taste may be worth exploring was crunching the data on water consumption along with weight gains for the University of Arkansas’s Applied Broiler Research Farm when we utilized different water treatments. The last thing that has me really wondering was my conversation with a grower who has less than normal water consumption in her young birds. Her water consumption per 1000 runs about two days behind normal. She used to sell a big bird and always settled well, but now she is growing a small bird and consistently has one of the lightest birds in the settlement. Another grower had suggested she flush her lines each day to see if that would stimulate consumption. Even though she has rural water, now that she is flushing her water lines each day, the birds consume like crazy shortly after the flush.

Some facts on the impact of taste in birds revealed that birds were certainly more sensitive to the taste of liquids versus feeds and that when chickens were given different things to drink, they essentially preferred an acidic taste over a sweet taste (That explains why they like vinegar). Plus birds actually have a “taste” for water whereas humans perceive water as tasteless. Birds would drink strong sugar solutions but refuse saccharine solutions. It was also pointed out that birds would refuse water that was a degree or two warmer than their body temperature but would readily drink water almost to freezing temperature. One researcher tested a whole array of flavours and found birds would readily refuse some flavours such as honey and molasses but would gradually warm up to other flavours such as coconut and butterscotch.

This tendency to slowly warm up to the taste of water where we miss the boat on water quality issues with birds. By refusing to drink adequately during the early period they fail to achieve weight gains and feed efficiency during a critical growing period. However, over time the birds come around to the water “taste” and begin to make up for lost time. While compensatory growth may be possible with a heavier market weight, it is very unlikely that a grower can regain the lost performance on smaller market weight birds resulting in poor settlements.

The University of Arkansas has a 4 broiler house farm which operates as a contract producer for a local integrator. While we do serve as a research site, we are in the business of making money so we pay close attention to our settlement check. We were utilizing gas chlorination and a common acidifier (Product A) and actually achieving some of the heaviest weights on the settlements with good feed conversions and livabilities. Our performance was usually in the top half of the settlement. In my great wisdom, I decided to try a new acidifier (Product B) that for all practical purposes seemed fine. All of a sudden our weights at settlement were no longer at the top. This went on for three flocks. We pulled Product B and went back to Product A. Weights returned to the top of the settlement again. Now you would think being a university type, would have been carefully analysing the daily water usage data the farm manager gathers. No I was just looking at the flock summary usage and saw nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until this week that I finally analysed water consumption on a daily basis for the different treatments and sure enough, birds receiving product B lagged behind in water consumption until about 16-17 days of age as compared to the water consumption of their counterparts receiving product A. (See Table below) Around three weeks, they actually began to drink more water on product B than product A, but we never recaptured the performance lost during the early weeks. Looking at overall flock water usage, the numbers were similar regardless of product. As you can see from the chart below, we only lost a gallon or two per thousand each day early on as compared to the consumption on Product A, but it obviously mattered. Of course in time the birds either grew to like or tolerate the product, but there was no recapturing the weight lost early on.

There are also several cases of breeder birds not achieving performance with the common symptom being lowered egg production. A test of the water usually revealed smelly water and once the system was cleaned or the birds put on a different source, their performance improved.

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