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AgSpeak Blog

Explore the AgSpeak Blog for expert agricultural resources.

Lighting Practices for Successful Laying Hens

Lighting Practices for Successful Laying Hens Sight is the most important sense for birds, as good eyesight is essential for safe flight, and birds have several adaptations that provide superior visual acuity relative to other vertebrate groups. Eyes share a basic common structure across species with some adaptations befitting evolution. In chickens, the eye…

Preparing Swine Barns for Spring

[grid-2-3] Spring brings new life to swine barns, but it can also bring new challenges. Long, tough winters can wreak havoc on equipment and buildings, creating problems that often only emerge with the spring thaw. That’s why it’s important to pay special attention to your barns as things warm up. Being vigilant in your maintenance…

Spring Biosecurity Checklist

[grid-2-3] Spring sees the reemergence of new plants, animals, and insects alike. Unfortunately, it also brings with it the reemergence of diseases that we haven’t seen since fall. That makes early spring a good time to check your structural and operational biosecurity to protect your farm, flocks and family from diseases like Highly Pathogenic Avian…

What makes a good feed pan?

[grid-2-3] Everyone has their opinion on which feed pan is the best feed pan. It creates a loyalty that is hard to shake, even in the face of evidence of something better. The reality is that it’s really hard to know what makes a great feed pan, because there are so many shared features. For…

Best Management Practices for Broiler Brooding

If you haven’t seen it already, the Chicken Farmers of Ontario recently released a short video detailing some Best Management Practices of broiler brooding. Throughout the video, Dr. Scott Gillingham stresses the importance of stockmanship, biosecurity, and attention to detail. We’ll summarize some of his main points below, but strongly encourage you to check out…

Brooding Healthy Birds – A Pre-Placement Checklist

Chicks are dependent on their environment to survive the early days of life. Because they cannot regulate their own body temperature, they require a warm brood chamber and easy access to food and water. The down feathers on chicks offer poor insulation and they will quickly lose heat through radiation (to the air), conduction (contact…

The Ultimate Poultry Watering Guide

The Ultimate Poultry Watering Guide An effective watering system only performs as well as the farmer knows how to make it. It seems like such a simple thing, but sometimes even the smallest errors can have a detrimental effect on flock performance. Not to worry, we’re here to explain everything that you need to know…

Keep Warm During Winter With These Tips

[grid-2-3] Winter is never easy, and from the look of it this week, this winter season will be no different. Bitter cold temperatures make it hard to keep positive, especially when you’re watching your fuel costs go up and up. Here’s some tips to keep you warm at night. Chickens can handle their own when…

10 Interesting Facts about Chicken Vision

Whether in commercial flocks or backyard coops, chickens are endlessly fascinating. While we might never understand what all those quirky head nods mean, we can get a better sense of how chickens see the world with these 10 interesting facts about chicken vision. A chicken’s eyes are about 10% the entire mass of its head.…

A Guide to Managing Breeder Hens: From brood to lay

Rearing pullets means growers must be aware of all the management practices that make a healthy, reproductive bird. A productive breeder hen must hit a target weight by a particular age and have proper body conformation in order to be stimulated into egg laying. Flock uniformity is crucial to a productive hen house. A flock…

Stress-free Swine Handling – Knowing signs of stress

Stress on pigs during transport can cause losses; not just pig losses, but it can adversely affect the meat quality. Stress in transport can cause meat that’s too soft and pale or too dry and firm. This stress begins with the movement out of pens or barns so stress reduction should be front of mind…

Stress-free Swine Handling – Understanding pig behavior

Pig handlers should understand pig behaviors to move pigs with as little stress as possible. Most pig behavior can be attributed to natural instincts. Pigs are herd animals and find being isolated from the group stressful. They have a strong tendency to follow each other while maintaining visual and bodily contact and prefer to be…