In recent years, as layer farming has become more large-scale and the division of labor in society has become more specialized, dedicated pullet farms have sprung up like mushrooms after rain. Their rapid growth can be said to have exceeded ordinary expectations. However, many problems remain in the healthy development of pullet farms. These include: a lack of necessary national standards for pullets; a lack of trust and self-discipline among farms; generally low overall pullet quality; a shortage of people providing breeding and promotion services for pullet farms, with services extending only a limited distance; and generally low management standards at layer and pullet farms, resulting in issues such as delays in handling problems and unclear assignment of responsibility. As a result, complaints and disputes over pullets continue, and the sector remains in a period of “warlord-style infighting,” marked by price-cutting and disorderly competition. Some people make money raising pullets, while others are forced out of business by compensation claims over quality problems such as pullets that turn out to be roosters. Truly leading pullet brands are rare in China. In short, pullet farming is not an easy business. To make a living in this field, you need real expertise and must adhere to the basic principles of “no wishful thinking, no speculation, create a suitable environment, introduce good breeds, manage carefully, ensure nutrition, and prevent diligently.” You must be committed to putting science into practice and be prepared for long-term investment in education; make raising healthy chickens your sole goal, and work hard to cultivate your own core customer base. This is how you can gradually move forward more steadily, farther, and more broadly. To forge good steel, you must be strong yourself—that is essential!
I. Biosecurity Is the Foundation of a Poultry Farm’s Survival
Everyone knows about biosecurity, but the number of people who truly implement it fully and consistently is vanishingly small. The main reason for this situation is a gambling and speculative mindset. “Don’t cast your hawk until you see the rabbit”: people fail to recognize that danger is present and skip things that should have been prioritized and invested in. Always remember: “A newborn calf does not fear the tiger.” This does not mean a tiger cannot eat a newborn calf; it means the calf does not know how dangerous the tiger is. Raising chickens is like walking a tightrope; it requires care and caution at all times and in all matters. If a child does poorly at school, scoring 100 points today and 85 points tomorrow, the problem is generally not too serious, and with effort the child can gradually improve. But poultry-farm biosecurity must always score 100 points; any one shortfall of 99 points could destroy the farm. Poultry farms face threats from tens of thousands to hundreds of millions of pathogenic microorganisms. Immunization and specific medicines alone are of little use; the most effective and direct approach is biosecurity prevention and control. How much you know is not important; what matters is how much you can do and whether you can do it properly. Here are some areas of work for everyone to focus on:
(I) The owner must take this seriously
First, devote at least 40% of the main effort to biosecurity; second, maintain strict supervision and inspections, with rewards and penalties; third, be willing to invest in biosecurity—spend money on high-quality, effective disinfectants and on biosecurity measures.
(II) Be careful when selecting a site
Build a poultry farm only if a suitable site is available; if not, do not build one—never settle for an unsuitable site. A chicken farm must be on high, dry ground and must never be built in low-lying rice paddies, marshes, or mountain hollows. Its distances from roads, railways, chemical plants, slaughterhouses, villages, residential areas, and water sources must comply with national standards. It should be far from other poultry farms, preferably by more than 5 kilometers.
(iii) The layout should be reasonable
A poultry farm can raise as many chickens as the site can accommodate; the deciding factor is not you, but the size of the land. A poultry farm that was making a profit may fail to earn money after additional chicken houses are built and more chickens are raised. Be sure to strictly separate the administrative area, living area, and production area, preferably by 50 meters; the spacing between chicken houses should be generous, at 3￣5 times the height of a chicken house (considering sunlight, during the 6 hours from the winter solstice, 9: 00 to 15: 00, the south wall of the chicken house on the north side should receive full sunlight), to facilitate disease prevention, fire prevention, and ventilation. Good airflow and abundant sunlight at a poultry farm are age-old elements of good “feng shui” for successful chicken raising.
(Four) Do not build housing blindly
Making money from raising chickens is never a matter of multiplying numbers; it comes from painstaking effort and accumulated gains, with returns built up little by little. Those who blindly build ultra-large, single brooding houses for tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of birds generally end in failure and misery. Chicken houses are not better simply because they are more enclosed, nor are they necessarily better when larger. Nothing is more important than creating basic living conditions suitable for the healthy growth and development of the flock, including ventilation, lighting, temperature, humidity, space, drinking water, and feed intake. In practice, a three-tier, three-row, semi-open brooding house with approximately 1.5 per building and a length of approximately 60 meters is best in terms of overall farming benefits, convenience in selling pullets, and disease control.
(Five) Focus on the effectiveness of disinfection
Implement “6 commitments” and “4 full utilizations”: commit to using high-quality disinfectants; commit to thoroughly cleaning the chicken farm every month and disinfecting the areas around the chicken houses every week; commit to disinfecting chickens in their houses; commit to disinfecting the chicken farm and chicken houses after strong winds; commit to using professional disinfection teams or personnel; and commit to strict supervision, inspection, and rewards and penalties. Make full use of the three disinfection basins at the entrance, the entrance to the production area, and the entrance to the chicken house, rather than treating them as a formality (install rain shelters, replace the disinfectant in the basins according to a set schedule, and carry out supervision and inspections and impose penalties). Make full use of the initiative of all farm personnel to ensure self-management (good habits come from strict training and requirements: all personnel must shower and disinfect before entering the production area; footwear used inside the houses must not be worn outside the houses at any time during the entire rearing period; at the entrance to each chicken house, personnel must change shoes and disinfect before entering, and outsiders must be strictly prohibited from entering the chicken houses for any reason within 35 days (the immunization gap period); and ensure thorough disinfection of empty houses and an adequate interval between flocks—do not take chances. Under no circumstances may the empty-house period be less than 2 weeks. After an outbreak of a highly virulent infectious disease, following the prescribed procedures, an interval of more than 6 weeks is preferable. If biosecurity measures are not properly implemented during the empty-house period and birds are brought in hastily, they will be difficult to raise and disease outbreaks will continue. This is also why the quality of chickens at some pullet farms declines with each successive production cycle. Biosecurity during the empty-house period is even more important than biosecurity during the rearing period. Make full use of professional organizations to assess disinfection effectiveness: assign designated personnel to inspect the results of disinfection and administer rewards and penalties, and engage a dedicated third-party organization to assess the farm’s disinfection effectiveness.
(VI) Nutritional requirements must be met
The core of biosecurity is reducing the occurrence of disease, while meeting the animal’s nutritional needs is the foundation for good physical condition and antibody formation. Use high-quality starter crumble feed specifically for laying hens, rather than inferior broiler crumble feed intended for fattening. Work with leading domestic premix producers to use high-quality premix for the brooding period, and formulate the overall feed ration appropriately according to breed standards. Strictly control raw material procurement, prevent feed from becoming moldy, and ensure grain is properly stored and dried. Use production and development needs as the basis for evaluating feed and changing formulations—not cost savings or personal relationships.
(VII) Immunization results are more important
In four respects: choose high-quality vaccines that have been validated through long-term practice; build your own dedicated immunization team (not an outsourced one); reduce immunization through drinking water; and determine bonuses for the immunization team based on the results of third-party immunization testing.
(Eight) Permanent elimination of the three pests
To prevent rats, three lines of defense can be established on the chicken farm: First line of defense: place one rodent bait box every 50 meters along the perimeter wall; second line of defense: place one rodent bait box every 30 meters outside the poultry houses; third line of defense: place one rodent bait box every 25 meters by the rat barriers and beneath the slatted floors on both sides inside the houses. A dedicated person should place rodenticide and monitor rat density. In addition, mosquitoes, flies, and various insects must be controlled, and sanitation inside and outside the poultry houses must be maintained (in particular, the brooms, dustpans, shovels, and other tools used to clean inside and outside the chicken farm must be kept separate and not shared). Control weed growth (lay ground cover film between buildings to control weed growth); spray insecticide and disinfect regularly.
(Nine) Do not overlook birds
Implement bird prevention measures based on “three no sources and three preventions.” Use bird netting, bird covers, and bird-dropping prevention designs, and adopt three prevention measures to ensure birds have no food source, no water source, and no habitat.
(Ten) All dead chickens must be completely burned.
Dead chickens must never be piled up just anywhere, and must not be allowed to be eaten by dogs. After dissection in the veterinary room, they must be promptly burned in an incinerator or burned immediately.
II. Adhering to principles is the solid foundation for the development of a chicken farm
Adhere to the principle of putting integrity first: be honest in how you conduct yourself and sincere in how you work. Adhere to the principle of respecting nature: respect science and facts, and act in accordance with objective laws. Know your own limits and understand when to make trade-offs.
(I) Bigger is not better than stronger; stronger is not better than lasting longer
We usually call a pullet-raising facility a brooding farm. The profound meaning bestowed by the ancients can be seen in the Chinese character for “raising” (育). First, the “moon” (月) at the bottom represents time: it takes long-term, persistent effort, month after month. The “death” (亡) at the top represents the result of not making an effort: a dead end. The small dot (、) at the lower right of 亡 represents the need to be meticulous in one’s work; if even one detail is not done well, it can lead to “death” (亡). Raising pullets well is a systematic undertaking that requires close coordination across many areas, including chick quality, the environment, and management. It also requires a long-term effort to cultivate customers: stay focused, do not rush, and prioritize quality over size. Treat raising pullets as a lifelong undertaking, not as a way to make a quick profit. With quality, connections, and customer resources, you can gradually grow stronger and larger from a small beginning. If the foundations are weak, a pullet farm built through reckless expansion will face complaints day after day and be plagued by quality problems, and may perish early along the way. Building a “century-old shop” in the pullet business is an aspiration we should pursue.
(II) Knowing what to do and what not to do is an important guarantee of a chicken farm’s development.
The owner of a pullet farm needs to exercise strict self-discipline; this should not be driven by market forces. Uphold ethical principles, believe that “Heaven sees all,” and earn only what you ought to earn. Any money earned at the expense of quality is money that should not be earned. Choose chicks that are high-priced, high-quality, from reputable, large-scale hatcheries; chicks from such hatcheries have consistent maternal antibodies, excellent genetic traits, and good disease-control status. For feed, use products from well-known domestic feed companies: high-quality, nutritionally balanced, easily absorbed and digested layer-specific pellets and premixes. For environmental control, never sacrifice ventilation for warmth, and never use continuous lighting for 8￣9 weeks to stimulate the birds to eat more (such birds will experience severe stress when transferred to the customer’s farm). Strictly observe the downtime between flocks: the interval between batches must be at least 15 days. It is best to avoid brooding during the summer heat of 4￣7; raise 3 batches in each poultry house. If these practices are followed, success will come naturally.
(Three) A strict process is key to successful farming
Establish a series of key procedures covering everything from leaving the poultry house empty, disinfection and introducing chicks to the eventual culling of the customer’s laying hens. These should include a strict empty-house period, with the house left empty for more than 42 days when necessary; a series of rigorous procedures for each poultry house after a flock has been sold in its entirety, starting with spraying disinfectant to remove dust and disinfect, then rinsing after 3 days, and ending with inspection and approval after the final fumigation and disinfection; a series of management procedures covering the assessment of grandparent-stock farms, the timing of chick introductions, chick transportation, and the period from chick placement at the brooding farm until the birds are ready to leave the farm. These procedures must specify every step and every person’s responsibilities. From the sale of the chicks until the customer’s laying hens are culled, the service schedule and scope of work for professional service staff, as well as the content and objectives of targeted training, must all be comprehensive and clearly defined. Procedures must be scientifically sound and repeatedly reviewed with key poultry-farm personnel. Once established, they must be strictly followed, with severe penalties for violations and failure to provide the required service.
(Four) Keep the scale of breeding within the limits of your technical expertise and capabilities
People generally think that the returns from raising pullets work by addition and multiplication. In fact, as the scale of the operation grows and management becomes less rigorous, returns are more often subject to subtraction and division. It is like driving: for someone who drives a small car, suddenly driving a large truck is by no means a simple matter. No one who understands chicken farming would dare say that raising chickens is guaranteed to make money, or that raising more chickens means earning more. People differ in their abilities and technical skills, and the scale of your chicken farm must remain within the limits of your technical skills and capabilities; otherwise, the likelihood of failure increases.
(Five) Do not blindly introduce so-called modern equipment
(H-type cages, etc.), and the hardware and software must be compatible. This involves at least three issues. First, correctly assess whether the equipment being introduced is suited to the farm’s profitability. For pullets, the normal net profit is about 2 yuan per bird. Suppose modern H-type cages are introduced: the total investment for a single 5-wan-capacity H-type poultry house is about more than 200 wan yuan. Assuming depreciation is completed over 15 years and the house operates for 3 batches per year (the optimal operating rate), raising 225 wan birds per year for 15 years would yield a total profit of 450 wan yuan. Depreciation alone would therefore be about 1 yuan per bird. At a bank interest rate of 6.5 li for loans of more than 5 years, the interest on a loan of 200 wan yuan over 15 years would be another 200 wan yuan, costing about 1 yuan of profit per bird. This does not even include usurious loans. Never assume that pullet farming is extremely profitable. Second, setting aside the inconvenience of operating modern stacked cages, they require managers with a relatively high level of skill. If you have brought in the equipment, have you brought in qualified personnel? People are often unwilling to invest in this area, and the consequences are predictable. Third, it is not that this equipment is bad; rather, in reality, issues with its use, personnel management, software adoption, and so on mean that the chickens raised are indeed unsatisfactory. The idea that good equipment alone can produce good chickens is pure wishful thinking.
(Six) Use the development status of the young chickens as the pricing standard
Price wars inevitably come at the expense of quality. To improve product quality, prices should be based on quality. For example, for chickens aged 60 days, the provisional base price is 14 yuan per bird. The actual body weight, shank length, and uniformity at 60 days of age would then be used as criteria for adjusting the selling price. Starting from the price for meeting the basic standards (for example, for brown-egg laying hens at 60 days of age: 0.7 kilograms, uniformity of 75%, and a shank length of 83 millimeters), the price would be adjusted accordingly: an average body weight increase of 50 grams would add 0.8 yuan per bird; an additional 2 millimeters of shank length would add 0.5 yuan per bird; and an increase in uniformity of 5% would add 0.5 yuan per bird. These measures encourage pullet farms to raise their birds well, helping both supply and demand develop in a healthy direction.
Three. Introducing chickens from a single source is a guarantee of the poultry farm’s health.
Generally, about 2.5 qualified hatching eggs can provide one healthy female chick. Because breeder hens have relatively low egg production, and unqualified hatching eggs are discarded, producing 1 ten thousand chicks requires the eggs laid in one day by 3 ten thousand sets of breeders. For a large chick-rearing farm, for example, one raising 5 ten thousand birds per batch, the eggs laid in one day by 15 ten thousand sets of breeders need to be incubated. Even if we use eggs stored for up to 7 days, we still need a breeder flock of 2 ten thousand sets for a single batch. Parent breeder farms generally maintain at least 3 batches of breeders to ensure a continuous supply of chicks. If 5 ten thousand female chicks are needed at one time, the breeder farm must have more than 6 ten thousand sets. Breeder farms generally do not turn down orders from large customers. To meet the required number of chicks, they first extend the egg-collection period (to a maximum of 7 days; otherwise, there will be more weak chicks and the hatchability rate will fall), then incubate hatching eggs from different batches together, and finally purchase hatching eggs from outside suppliers. This results in less uniform female chicks and lower antibody titers. Because the eggs come from breeder flocks of different ages, and even from different farms, corresponding diseases can spread among flocks and converge at the farm, increasing the difficulty and risk of raising them. For 5 ten thousand chicks, hatching eggs for the same day require 15 ten thousand sets of breeders. A farm of this kind would therefore need at least 45 ten thousand sets. In China, the companies with that many parent breeders are probably limited to a few, such as Yugu, Huayu, and Ningxia Xiaoming. As farms expand, upstream breeder companies will become a constraint on farming profitability. This is about more than scale: it also involves management standards, facilities, eradication of inherited diseases, and chick quality. From this perspective, we hope everyone will pay attention to four things: first, do not make the scale of a single batch too large; second, match the scale of the operation to the parent breeder flock; third, pay attention to the quality of chicks and the reputation of key breeding stock companies; fourth, once you have identified a breeder company you are satisfied with, do not change suppliers lightly.
Four. Customer management is the driving force behind the development of chicken farms.
Never assume that because the pullets raised are good, customers will be able to raise their laying hens well. What we should do instead is extend the service chain so that, through expanded services, customers can raise their chickens well and make money, thereby developing a large number of benchmark and demonstration customers. Without high-quality pullets and a high level of profitability, services cannot be extended, and the industry will remain stuck in low-level competition based on price wars and in low-level farming practices.
(I) Establish and improve customer files
A dedicated person should collect and maintain a file for each customer. The file should contain comprehensive information: name, site address, telephone number, chick placement date, number of chicks placed, breed, immunization status, body weight, shank length, uniformity, the person in charge, and other information.
Any particularly unusual circumstances that need to be noted should be described in detail to facilitate follow-up on the service.
(II) Design service items and procedures well
For each service item, clearly specify the service time, the scope of work, and the person responsible for carrying it out. Clearly define how service quality will be tracked and checked, including by telephone. For important customers, the boss must personally oversee the work.
(III) Improve the hardware and software for training
The pullet farm should have a dedicated meeting room (fully equipped with computers, multimedia equipment, whiteboard markers, and a whiteboard) for explaining and providing training when receiving customers. Turn the training content into standardized course materials, and deliver the training in stages and by category. Focus on managing pullets and laying hens, extending the feeding period during brooding (approximately 10 weeks, body weight 900 grams, shank length above 90 millimeters), feed selection, formulating feed, and management and nutritional adjustments for the different seasons of summer, winter, spring, and autumn.
(Four) Develop and apply demonstration farms and model farms.
Select young, educated, motivated, and cooperative people and gradually develop them into outstanding customer representatives, guiding them in raising chickens well. Turn all evidence-based customers into display boards and post them around the meeting room. Hold recognition ceremonies for outstanding customers and evidence-based customers from time to time each year, reward outstanding customers generously, and create role models. Evidence-based and model customers may be those with good egg production, or those who perform well in 18-week body weight, uniformity, and shank length, or those who perform well in the time taken to reach peak production, as well as the peak and its duration. In short, be sure to develop strong role models, thereby stabilizing the customer base and promoting the healthy development of chicken farms.