Birds of this breed have a beautiful appearance, the ability to quickly gain weight and lay eggs during the year. They have good immunity and are not afraid of cold weather, unpretentious in food and maintenance. Nevertheless, there are some features in the rules for keeping and breeding these individuals, which we will analyze further.
A bit of history
The bielefelder chicken breed was bred in the second half of the 20th century by German farmers. The bird was presented at the Hanover Agricultural Exhibition as German pollinated. And only in 1980 this species was officially recognized under the name now known (in honor of the town in Germany where the bird was bred).
When breeding the breed, representatives of the New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Welshmer species were involved. As a result of successful work, breeders received a unique type of poultry, which is characterized by high egg production and high-quality dietary meat.
View Features
The bird of this breed is primarily distinguished by its appearance - dimensions and color:
- Chickens are characterized by the coloring of feathers in two shades: black alternates with golden, brown or silver. The feathered body is oblong, while the sternum of the hens is wider than that of the roosters. Representatives of the species have broad shoulders, medium-sized wings and a thick, dense feather.
- Breeders set themselves the goal of obtaining meat breed, and they succeeded: bielefelders have high-quality meat, an adult individual with the correct content and nutrition reaches from 4 to 5 kg of weight.
A specific feature of the breed is that already in the first day after birth, you can determine the gender of the chickens.
As for productivity, the females begin to hatch from the age of six months, during the year they bring about 200 pieces of eggs, each 60-70 gr., In a brown shell. The peak of productivity occurs in the first 2-3 years of an individual's life, then this ability decreases.
Some poultry farmers include special nutritional supplements in the poultry diet, which should not be done categorically to increase the egg production of chickens. In this case, the individual will quickly lose its strength and ability to bear eggs. From the very beginning, it is important to follow the recommendations for proper nutrition and keeping poultry.
What are the benefits of breed breeding?
Consider what are the hens of the described breed, in contrast to other representatives:
- Bielefelders belong to meat and egg breeds, which means that you are guaranteed to get not only tasty, high-quality meat, but also a fairly large number of eggs during the year.
- The nature of these birds is resistant to various diseases and colds, which gives an obvious advantage over other breeds. So, these hens are not afraid of frosts down to -15 ° С.
- With proper nutrition with a sufficient amount of protein, individuals gain weight quite quickly and from an early age.
- Bielefelders are appreciated for their calm nature - the birds are quite peaceful and friendly, rarely conflict with their counterparts.
The flaws of this breed include the exactingness of the conditions of detention: the bird does not like drafts, so it should always be warm in the house. In addition, due to their physical and productive data, breed representatives can be expensive for a future farmer.
How to choose the right representatives of the breed: selection criteria
As already noted, bielefelder hens have one specific feature: from the first days after hatching of the chicks, the color of their down can be distinguished by males and females. So, in males, the plumage is light, the presence of black stripes is characteristic on the back, and the mark on the forehead is in the form of a light spot. Future layers are darker in color, with black or dark spots near the eyes.
Thus, when buying ready-made chickens from an incubator, you can select for yourself the necessary number of hens and cocks, focusing on the features of their appearance.
When choosing individuals, you should pay attention to the following points:
- If you want to buy a bird that is already able to lay eggs, then select individuals aged from six months - laying hens of bielefelders bring the first eggs from 7-8 months of their life.
- Pay attention to the state of the feather of the bird - the plumage should be smooth, shiny, have a healthy look. If there are bald spots on the body, then the chicken was sick or kept in unhealthy conditions. The presence of dirt and droppings under the tail indicates possible intestinal infections.
- A healthy individual has a comb and beard, as a rule, of a saturated red color. Pale integuments indicate that the bird is already young and of poor blood circulation.
- Take a closer look at the beak and paws of the bird - they should be yellow. There should not be any discharge around the eyes.
Poultry Care and Care Requirements
It will be most appropriate to keep domestic chickens in a simple house. If the birds are kept year round, then the buildings are made more thorough. They must reliably protect individuals not only from sharp temperature fluctuations, but also from enemies (animals and birds), be dry and fairly bright. If such a house is insulated, then in winter when keeping chickens on a deep litter without any heating in such a room, the temperature stays at least 6 ° C.
It is possible to provide a bird with a comfortable existence, observing a number of conditions:
- The place for the construction of the house is chosen even, with a slight slope to the south, providing a flow of water. To prevent groundwater from entering the house, drainage grooves up to 50 cm wide are arranged around it. Inside the house, the walls are made smooth, using plywood for upholstery or applying dry plaster. Such walls are more convenient to clean and disinfect.
- Peat, sawdust, shavings, straw, wood leaves, and dry coarse sand are used as bedding material.
Use the litter in the house: it eliminates the daily removal of litter and destroys the causative agents of some infectious diseases.
- In winter, to obtain high egg production of laying hens, it is necessary to use artificial lighting.
- Pay special attention to the insulation of the ceiling, floor, manholes and windows, since heat losses in winter mainly occur through them.
- Given that the bielefelder is a large bird, it is necessary to make the chicken coop and cage spacious for walking so that hens can freely walk around the territory.
- Feeders, drinking bowls and perches should be installed in the house:
- For wet feeds, metal feeders are best used, and for dry feed mixtures, chalk and gravel - wooden.
- Drinking bowls must be installed indoors because this poultry drinks a lot of water. So, on average, young animals drink twice as much water as they consume feed, so the water should be constant.
- Perches for chickens - an indispensable element of the house. For their manufacture, smoothly planed wooden bars are used. It is important to set the perches in such a way that their height from the litter is not more than 50 cm, since the bielefelders are rather large and heavy individuals.
- Another element of the house’s equipment is nests that make egg collection easier. The bird must be taught to rush in the nests. Install such boxes directly on perches in the darkened part of the room.
- Before placing the birds in the chicken coop, it is necessary to thoroughly wash, clean and disinfect the room. Before processing, all internal structural elements - floors, equipment and tools are washed with a 1.5-2% hot solution of soda ash (150-200 gr. Soda in a bucket of water). To wash the feeders, perches, ash lye is used. To prepare it, you need to dilute 1 kg of furnace ash in 5 l of water, after which the mixture is boiled and diluted twice with water.
- Solarium (aviary) - a fenced area for walking chickens in front of the house. Such an enclosure shall be at least half the area of the enclosed space. Given that the bielefelders are rather large, the enclosure should be quite spacious. So that the bird does not fly out of the solarium, and to isolate it from the wild bird, fences up to 2.2 m high are arranged. A grid with cells is pulled over the fence. The territory of the enclosure can be covered with sand, sow fine grass.
How and how to feed a bird
With proper feeding, chickens will be carried all year round and significantly gain weight. Consider some features of poultry catering:
1. All feed included in the diet of the bird is conventionally divided into carbohydrate, protein, vitamin, and mineral. This should also include whole grain, flour mixture, feed of vegetable, animal and mineral origin (see table):
Carbohydrate | Protein | Vitamin | Mineral |
Grains of cereals (corn, wheat, millet, barley, oats, sorghum, chumiza, etc.), potatoes and root crops with melons, cereals and waste of flour milling (bran, mill dust). | They contain a lot of protein and are divided into animal feed (fish, meat and bone, meat and feather meal, whole and skim milk, cottage cheese) and vegetable origin (legumes, oilcake, yeast, legume and nettle flour). | Such types of feed serve as a source of vitamins and provitamins, which are present in whole milk, flour from various herbs and tops of vegetable plants, coniferous flour, carrots, green grass. | Such feeds serve as a source of minerals: calcium, phosphorus, sodium, chlorine, iron. These include shell, chalk, limestone, feed phosphates, table salt, salts of macro- and microelements. |
2. Particular attention should be paid mineral nutrition of poultry. So, for the formation of the shell of one egg, the chicken spends more than 2 grams. calcium and 0.1 gr. phosphorus. A good source of calcium is chalk, shells of mollusks and shells, eggshells and limestone.
3. In the diet of chickens, from which eggs are obtained for hatching young animals, feeds rich in vitamins and containing easily digestible high-grade protein must be present.
4. In the adult bird, the plumage changes annually, and it usually begins in late summer - early fall, and is accompanied by a weakening of the body. Shed feeding should be less abundant than in the midst of oviposition, but varied and high-calorie. The bird can be fed fish and meat and bone meal, fresh cottage cheese. You should give a shell, slaked lime, chalk, bone meal, eggshells, as well as carrots, pumpkin, potatoes, cabbage and beet leaves, legume herbs.
5. The bird eats well mixers into which gardening wastes are introduced - crushed apple, pear and plum beets, squeezed apples, etc.
Usually a bird is fed 3-4 times a day. Drinking water should always be in the house and aviary. An approximate daily diet, calculated per head, may be as follows (in gr.):
- grain (oats, barley, etc.) - 50;
- flour mixture (oat, barley, wheat bran) - 50;
- hay flour - 10;
- succulent feed (carrots, rutabaga, beets) - 30-50;
- dry protein feed of animal and vegetable origin (oilcake, meat waste, etc.) - 10-15;
- shell - 5;
- bone meal - 2;
- salt is 0.5.
Breeding and breeding young chicks
If you still opted for this particular poultry breed, then first of all you should decide where and how you will buy the chickens themselves. There are several possible options:
- To acquire a young individual - it is optimal to choose grown hens at the age of 3-5 months, when they themselves can eat, walk, sometimes even able to lay eggs.
- Take just bred chickens (age from 1 day) - you can look at these in special stores, on the bird market or from friends.
- If you already have bielefelders, then it is quite possible to wait for the offspring from your layers.
- Buy an egg and take out the chickens in the incubator on your own.
It should be noted that laying hens are reluctant to hatch chicks, so for reliability it is best to have an incubator and a generator on hand.
It is recommended to store fresh eggs before placing them in the apparatus within five days, then the raw material becomes unsuitable for hatching.
The optimal time for laying eggs in the apparatus falls at the beginning of spring (February-April). Chickens from such a brood will grow and develop in the spring, when there is a lot of sun, fresh grass and small insects around.
It is especially important to pay attention to feeding chickens:
- The first 3-5 days, the chickens are fed a hard-boiled egg or fresh cottage cheese mixed with crushed grain of corn, wheat or boiled millet in a ratio of 1: 3 or 1: 5.
- From the 3rd day of cultivation they should be given fresh greens - nettle, alfalfa, clover. The greens are crushed and added to the feed mixers, here you can add boiled potatoes, grated carrots.
- Up to 10 days of age, chickens are fed 5-6 times a day.
As they grow older, chickens, chalk, crushed bone, flour are added to chickens without fail.
Rules for the maintenance and care of adults and young animals
The conditions in which the adult bird and young individuals are kept do not differ much from each other.
As a general rule, for the full development and stable weight gain, a bird of this breed needs a constant source of protein and calcium. Adults are quite unpretentious in food, but young chicks (up to 5-6 months) need to provide a varied diet enriched with vitamins and calories.
Chickens of this breed should be kept clean - not only because of their intolerance to dirt, but also for hygienic reasons. Keep an eye on the state of food in the feeders, drinking water, litter in the chicken coop. The latter for an adult can be loosened periodically, but it is advisable to change it for chicks once a day, so that the still immature organism does not pick up any infection.
Disease Prevention
Most poultry diseases are caused by improper maintenance or feeding. It is important to notice a sick bird in time (lack of appetite, eyes closed, heavy breathing, bird limping or not getting up, cramps of limbs or head are observed). If it is not possible to identify the cause of the disease, you should call a veterinarian.
We will analyze individual points regarding the prevention of infectious diseases, the distributors of which are mainly ticks, rats:
- Poultry should be acquired on farms where there are no infections.
- Disinfect premises and equipment in combination with proper feeding and high sanitary and hygienic conditions.
- The litter in the houses should always be dry, the room must be systematically ventilated.
- The following substances and means are used as disinfectants: sunlight, high temperature, freshly slaked lime, potassium permanganate, and others.
As you can see, raising and keeping a bielefelder bird is quite simple. Their living conditions, feeding requirements are not much different from the needs of ordinary chickens. It is not difficult for any beginner poultry breeder to raise such chickens for themselves, taking into account their characteristics, and to receive valuable meat and eggs.