What would you tell your six-year-old child when he asks, is poultry the meat or chicken? Find your answers on trending topic “is poultry the meat or chicken”. This has been a topic of discussion at times, and we hope to address it in the best way possible in this article.
What is poultry?
Poultry is the process of producing domestic feathered birds from hatching through the growth period till the bird is ready for consumption.
Poultry is defined as the maintenance of domesticated birds, which include hens, cockerels, turkeys, ostriches, geese, ducks, guinea fowls, and quails.
Other birds, such as the peacock and the flamingo, may be confused as to why they are not classified as poultry birds.
Poultry birds are often market-targeted birds. So, if you want to grow a bird for the market, you need to inquire about whether people want to consume this bird and whether there is a market for this bird.
Poultry is a separate sector with two major important products: meat and eggs. To answer the question, is it poultry or chicken? Poultry is not the same as chicken or meat, yet both are products of poultry.
Poultry chicken production
I’d want to walk you through the principles of a poultry breeder farm, a hatchery, and back to the production field to show you how chicken is made.
The poultry breeder farms operate a mix of hens and cockerels. Most chicken breeds start producing eggs at six months of age, while some require five months.
The ratio of cockerels to hens in a pen is 1:10 that’s one cockerel to ten hens. So, assuming you have 200 hens you will need 20 cockerels for effective fertilization.
To avoid bacterial infections, you must pick eggs every three hours on the breeding farm. Fertile eggs must be cared for in order to safeguard the developing embryo.
Following egg collection, the next step is to transport the fertile eggs to the hatchery for incubation. We utilized an old incubator with no brand name here. I believe it is an improvised scientific experiment.
Hatching chicken fertile eggs
A temperature of 37.0 to 37.5 degrees Celsius (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit) is considered best for hatching chicken fertile eggs in a hatchery. Temperatures over 37.5 degrees Celsius can harm the chicken embryo, whereas temperatures below 37 degrees Celsius result in embryo cell death.
Another essential factor to consider in any incubator is the humidity level. When hatching chicken eggs, the humidity level should be between 70% and 80%. An incubator’s humidity may be measured using any hygrometer.
How do you regulate the humidity in an incubator? Fill a bowl with water and place it near the incubator fan. Leave it there until the humidity level on the hygrometer begins to rise.
An old incubator will necessitate the turning of eggs on a frequent basis. We utilized a two-hour interval to turn the eggs here. A modern incubator, on the other hand, will have an automated mechanism to perform the rotation.
In an incubator, a chicken takes 21 days to hatch. On the 18th day of incubation, transport the eggs to the candle room to remove infertile eggs and transfer fertile eggs to the hatcher for hatching.
A fertile egg includes a growing embryo, but an infertile egg may exhibit areas of dark forms or just a whole transparent egg when light passes through it.
Following candling, your chicks will hatch from their eggshells inside the hatcher over the next three (3) days. So, indeed, a complete hatch chick takes precisely 21 days.
The chicks may now be transported to the brooding house, where most farms utilize a temperature of 35 degrees Celsius to keep the day-old chicks warm. This temperature may change depending on the country. This temperature is appropriate for the tropics. Learn how to look after day-old chicks.
Most poultry farms take six (6) or seven (7) weeks to achieve an average bird weight of 2.5 kilos (5.5 pounds) and then be ready for market. And this is how you get your chicken meat ready to consume.
Conclusion
At this point, we hope you understand what poultry implies as the industry that raises domesticated feathered birds to create chicken meat.
