Secrets to disease safety for a chicken farm of 40,000 chickens

NINH BINH Regularly maintaining a flock of 40,000 chickens, Mr. Tran Van Ru in Vu Ban (Ninh Binh) pays special attention to ensuring disease safety with many measures.

Top chicken flock in Ninh Binh

Before the merger, Mr. Tran Van Ru's family in Kim Thai commune, Vu Ban district, Nam Dinh province owned the largest private farm in the province, regularly maintaining 40,000 pigs in the barn.

"I started raising chickens in 2020. I started with 1,000 chickens," Mr. Ru shared. He said that he had tried many jobs before but they were not effective, so he decided to switch to raising chickens and found the right direction, which is raising high-yield white chickens.

White-feathered chicken coop of Mr. Tran Van Ru's family is about to be sold. Photo: Tung Dinh.

10 years after starting his business, by 2010, the total flock of the farmer born in 1970 had reached 40,000 chickens, maintained regularly in the coop. Of these, more than 90% were high-yield white chickens, the rest he raised colored chickens, serving a number of small, retail customers.

"From the initial 1,000 chickens, I gradually expanded the scale. At first, I built barns in the village, then had to move outside the residential area to increase the total herd and from 2010 until now, it has been at 40,000 chickens," the owner of 3 chicken farms in Vu Ban shared.

Currently, Mr. Ru's 3 chicken farms have a total of 6 coops, each coop has about 7,000 chickens, peak can be up to 45,000 chickens, and usually is at 38,000 - 40,000 chickens.

Of which, the majority are white chickens, which he usually raises for 50 days before selling: "White chickens are raised for nearly 2 months before being sold, at that time the average weight is about 3.5 kg/chicken".

This amount of white chicken is purchased by traders from neighboring localities such as Hanoi , Hung Yen... to serve company kitchens and industrial parks. According to Mr. Ru, the chickens are sold as soon as they are raised, so there is no need to worry about the output.

With colored chickens, he maintains about 3,000 and must raise them for 5 months to reach the standard for sale. Accordingly, colored chickens when sold will have an average weight of about 2.5 kg/chicken.

Mr. Ru regularly checks and ensures the health of his chickens. Photo: Tung Dinh.

"This weight is suitable for current consumer tastes, not too big but still enough to look plump when cut," Mr. Ru explained, adding that his family's colored chickens are often exported to hotels, restaurants or sold during holidays and Tet.

Thanks to understanding the tastes and organizing production according to the market, for the past 25 years, Mr. Ru's chicken flock has always ensured output, maintained stability and is only waiting for conditions to continue expanding.

This year, Mr. Ru assessed that the chicken market is favorable, the selling price has been maintained well since the beginning of the year. "Currently, the price of white chicken is about 43,000 VND/kg, and colored chicken is more than 80,000 VND/kg, chicken farmers have a good year," the owner of the largest chicken farm in Nam Dinh said excitedly.

Currently, each month Mr. Ru's family sells about 20,000 white chickens, with an average weight of 3.5 kg/chicken, the total sales volume is about 70 tons of chicken/month, and about 800 tons per year.

He calculated that after deducting all expenses, if the market is favorable, his family can earn from 800 million to 1 billion VND in profit each year.

Many other farms in the province may be larger in scale but often raise for large enterprises. Mr. Ru's family still maintains operations according to an independent model, creating regular jobs for more than 10 workers, rotating at 3 farms.

With this effective production model, in 2023, Mr. Tran Van Ru received a certificate of merit from the Prime Minister, praising the effective and stable production and business model, helping to eliminate hunger, reduce poverty and create jobs for workers, contributing to the socio-economic development of Nam Dinh province (old).

Certificate of Merit from the Prime Minister awarded to Mr. Tran Van Ru in 2023. Photo: Tung Dinh.

Ensuring epidemic safety

Like many other start-up farmers, in the 2000s, when he first started raising white chickens, Mr. Ru suffered many losses due to disease.

"At that time, there was no experience in caring for and preventing diseases, so the chickens got sick, sometimes causing losses of up to 20% of the original flock," he shared.

Then, thanks to his determination to research and learn from the experiences of those who went before him, and at the same time refer to recommendations from professional agencies, Mr. Ru gained more knowledge to ensure the health of his chicken flock.

"After the initial difficult period, now my chickens are almost disease-free, healthy from the time they enter the flock until they are sold," shared the excellent farmer of Ninh Binh province.

Talking about his experience in managing and preventing diseases for chickens, Mr. Ru affirmed that the most important thing is the vaccine. His chickens are often imported from the South and must always be fully vaccinated before entering the flock.

Besides, during the raising process, he always focuses on ensuring a clean, airy environment for the chickens to be healthy and not exposed to pathogens.

Disease-free, fully vaccinated chickens raised on biological bedding are the ways Mr. Ru ensures disease safety for his farm. Photo: Tung Dinh.

"Currently, after selling each batch of chickens, I have to let the coop rest for about 10 days. During that time, I focus on cleaning and disinfecting to ensure the coop is clean for the new flock," said Mr. Ru.

To ensure the safety of the chickens, he is using probiotics to sprinkle on the floor of the coop, and has also invested in a large ventilation fan system to keep the coop well-ventilated and disease-free.

Mr. Ru determined that to ensure safety in livestock farming, attention must be paid to everything from selecting qualified breeds with clear origins to food and water sources, cleaning the barn environment, and disease prevention work must be monitored and checked regularly.

Maintaining a flock of around 40,000 chickens in the coop for more than 10 years, Mr. Tran Van Ru always hopes to expand the scale of production, both to improve economic efficiency for his family and to help create more jobs for workers in the area.

"If I had the conditions, I could completely increase the total regular flock to 100,000 chickens," the owner of one of the largest private chicken farms in Ninh Binh affirmed.

According to him, to do that, first of all, the government needs to support land policies to be able to open more farms because the land fund is almost exhausted. Second, there needs to be policies to protect domestic livestock from imported goods with better prices.

Currently, Mr. Ru has invested in a farm in the Southern region, but he does not raise chickens but grows fruit trees, mainly durian. He said, if he could organize an additional chicken farm, there would be an abundant source of organic fertilizer, supplementing the fruit trees, making use of resources, reducing costs, and ensuring environmental hygiene.

Although he has more than 20 years of experience raising chickens, Mr. Ru still regularly participates in training courses, tours, and learns from strong farming localities across the country.

Source: https://nongnghiepmoitruong.vn/bi-quyet-an-toan-dich-benh-cho-trai-ga-4-van-con-d781884.html