Here, the birds will be marketed daily, from 40 to 54 days of age, based on their body weight, i.e. The ideal system for India at present is having 5 to 6 batches of broilers at any time, with weekly interval between batches and “direct retail marketing”. The chicks are reared for five to six weeks of age, or until they attain the desired body weight and sold for table. Here, the farmer is buying day-old chicks and selling grown up broilers at weekly, fortnightly, once in three weeks or at monthly intervals. The multiple batch system consists of rearing of more than one batch of chicks at any time, with a batch interval of 1 to 4 weeks. However, this system is not suitable for large scale farming and needs higher fixed and working capital per bird.
This system is more hygienic, lesser sub-clinical infections and horizontal spreading of diseases and thereby lesser mortality rate, better growth rate and improved feed efficiency. Sufficient chicks will be purchased to accommodate the entire farm capacity, reared and marketed in a single lot. Under all-in all-out system, the farm will have only one batch of broilers, belonging to the same hatch at any time. The systems of rearing refer to either single batch at a time (all-in all-out system) or multiple batches of brooding and rearing of broilers. However, cage, slat and wire floor rearing of broilers are not as popular as litter floor rearing, due to problems like breast blisters, leg weakness and higher initial investment. It is a bird of about 8 weeks of age of either sex (straight-run chicks) with an average body weight of 1.5 to 2.0 kg with a flexible breast bone cartilage, pliable and tender meat.īroilers can be housed on deep-litter, slatted or wire floor or cages.