Medical doctor turns millionaire poultry farmer.

Dr Subiri Obwogo a medical doctor is a poultry farmer who hatches chicks for sale at his flat.Driven by passion for poultry, Dr Obwogo has converted his laundry area at the back of his house into a hatchery. The 1 by 6m space hosts a 528-egg capacity incubator and three carton brooders measuring a metre-squared each, where he keeps the chicks depending on their sizes before he sells them. The medical doctor started poultry keeping in 2010. He was doing it at his rural home in western Kenya.He went into commercial poultry farming over a year ago after buying 100 indigenous chicks from Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro) in Naivasha at Sh100 each.“When I bought the 100 chicks, I did not even have proper background on poultry farming. I had read mostly in books but I had no practical experience,” recounts Obwogo. About 20 of the chicks died due to poor care at the laundry area and diseases as they stayed in the brooding boxes for over a month. He later transferred them to a house in Parklands, where other members of his family live. Soon, the about 35 hens (the rest were cockerels) started to lay eggs, and Obwogo, who had then toyed with the idea of selling eggs switched to hatching. “I saw a good business opportunity in selling chicks because many people were keeping chickens for eggs.” He

Preventing common metabolic disorders in dairy cattle.

Appropriate nutrition, together with reduced environmental and emotional stress are key to reducing welfare issues in dairy cattle.Nutrition goes a long way in combating post-calving complications Numerous metabolic disorders plague the dairy cow, from those that have a systemic effect to those that are localised. Either way, they cause discomfort, pain and negatively impact the animal’s health, welfare and, ultimately, productivity. One common theme throughout this article in relation to prevention or, at the very least, minimizing the incidence of metabolic diseases is management. Appropriate nutrition, together with reduced environmental and emotional stress are key to reducing these welfare issues. 1) The transition period is probably one of the most critical times in the dairy cow's production cycle. Physiologically, the animal is firstly preparing for, then experiencing, calving and lactation and all the demands, both physically and emotionally, that the cow has to deal with. Hormonal changes and a greatly increased demand for energy and nutrients means that the cow must make use of body reserves to meet targets, such as producing milk. Management through the late dry period and very early lactation has a substantial impact on the cow’s ability to respond to these demands without detrimental effects on her health and well-being. 2) Ketosis during transition Ketosis is a result of inadequate energy available in the form of glucose, meaning the animal must burn residual fat in order to keep up with physiological energy demands. When the amount of fat being metabolized at any one time is excessive, then production can be diverted to more rapid production of ketone bodies as a source of energy. Affected animals exhibit reduced dry matter intake (DMI), lethargy and weight loss. One key sign is the smell of pear drops on the animal’s breath from the elevated level of ketones in the blood. Treatment involves raising glucose levels in order to reduce energy generated from fat and body tissue. Ketosis can occur at any time in very early lactation, but occurrence often peaks at around 20 to 30 days. Risk factors for ketosis, include not only inadequate energy intake, but also poor or excessive body condition during the transition period. continue

5 milk fever prevention strategies for dairy cows.

Milk fever, can be prevented with carefully monitored dietary strategies. Milk fever is a common occurrence in dairy operations, and every effort should be made to reduce its incidence as it can increase the risk of other diseases and have lasting effects on the cow’s production cycle. These prevention stategies are 1)Dietary calcium restriction in the close-up dry period. 2)Dietary potassium restriction in the close-up dry period 3) Dietary cation-anion difference (DCAD) 4) Additional oral calcium supplementation Vitamin D3 Read more

Waste to wealth, turning chicken feathers to biodegradable plastic.

Chicken feathers are one of those materials that is still basically waste," said Yiqi Yang, a researcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and one of the authors of the new research. 

 Feathers are mostly made of keratin, the protein that's responsible for the strength of wool, hair, fingernails, and hooves, he added. So they "should be useful as a material."

 Past efforts to create plastic from feathers resulted in products that didn’t hold up mechanically or weren't completely water-resistant, said Yang’s University of Nebraska colleague Narenda Reddy, who also worked on the project. feathers have found another use in construction of buildings. 

Feathers may already be used in feed in some parts of the world, and work has also been carried out on turning them into fuel and, more surprisingly, computer chips, but for an industry that is already held up as being the most sustainable meat producer, finding a good new use for a waste material simply raises the sector’s environmental credential further.Read 

 Disposal of feathers often involves a cost, but turning a waste product into a valuable commodity has benefits that are also economic.The feathers are not only getting a second life, but are substituting materials that currently take a lot of energy to produce, using non-sustainable raw materials. 

 Feathers may not seem to be any more resistant than furze but, in the same way that feathers protect chickens from the cold, they can keep people’s homes warm, and as much as 30 percent of the foam used to make regular insulation boards could be substituted with treated feathers. To make the new plastic, the researchers started with chicken and turkey feathers that had been cleaned and pulverized into a fine dust. 

They then added chemicals that made the keratin molecules join together to form long chains -- a process called polymerization. The plastic they made was stronger than similar materials made from starch or soy proteins, and it stood up to water. Moreover, high temperature treatment of the feathers at the start of the process would blast out any possible contamination, such as from bird flu, according to Reddy. 

 The new material is a thermoplastic. "We can use heat and melt it to make different products," said Reddy. Heating it to a modest -- for industrial manufacturing -- 170 degrees Celsius allows the plastic to be molded into some desired shape, and it can be melted and remolded many times. Unlike most thermoplastics, which are petroleum-based, chicken-feather plastic uses no fossil fuels, the researchers said. 

 The feather-based plastic could be used for all kinds of products, from plastic cups and plates to furniture. In addition to making use of feathers that would otherwise end up in landfills, it is highly biodegradable. Read

Steps to prevent milk fever in dairy cows.

Hypocalcaemia, or milk fever, is a common occurrence in dairy operations. While clinical hypocalcaemia is generally easy to spot and producers often have a treatment plan in place, sub-clinical cases are less easy to detect, especially if blood calcium levels are not routinely measured. The initiation of lactation requires a tremendous increase in the cow’s calcium requirement to meet demands for milk synthesis. About 20 to 30 grams of calcium per day are needed for milk production compared with 8 to 10 grams per day for fetal development just prior to calving. Thus, metabolic adaptations must take place to support the increased need for calcium. If they do not take place soon enough or are of insufficient magnitude, the concentration of calcium in the blood drops below a critical threshold and clinical and sub-clinical hypocalcaemia (milk fever) can result. Milk fever can have lasting effects in the cow’s production cycle, and every effort should be made to reduce its incidence. This article explores management practices, feeding best practices and on-farm tools that can be used to help minimize clinical cases and/or catch sub-clinical cases. Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body with the vast majority being found in bone. The remainder (only ~1 percent) is vital for nerve function, muscle contraction and cell signalling. There is internal regulation of blood calcium levels involving parathyroid hormone (PTH), calcitonin and Vitamin D3 (1, 25-dihydroxycholecalciferol), known as calcitriol. Regulation involves calcium moving into or out of the skeleton, as well as dietary uptake of calcium from the small intestine. In situations of low blood calcium, PTH is secreted resulting in a greater amount of skeletal calcium that is resorbed and released into the blood. Parathyroid hormone release stimulates renal production of calcitriol, which then increases the absorption of calcium from the small intestine. Read

Africa and investment in poultry sector.

Africa is ready for investment in poultry sector,now is a good time to invest in the poultry sector in Africa, according to Rabobank analyst Nan-Dirk Mulder. Rabobank analyst says Africa is where the best opportunities exist in global poultry sector. Africa is now preparing to take its place on the global stage of poultry production, according to a new report from Rabobank. Poultry markets have been evolving over many years from national businesses to regional ones and now increasingly global, according to the organization’s senior analyst, Nan-Dirk Mulder. Buoyed up by a forecast 60 percent increase in demand over the next two decades, he considers that this trend will continue. Europe, the Americas and Asia have been the focus of most of the investment so far, but Mulder thinks that it is now in Africa where the best opportunities exist for those with the financial resources. As in other regions, it is growth in the middle class and urbanization that are driving the gradual modernization of the poultry sector in Africa. As the population becomes able to afford better diets including animal proteins, they are turning to poultry meat and eggs. Relatively short payback times make poultry meat and eggs attractive enterprises for local farmers, and both start-up and expansion are relatively easy to achieve. Also important in Mulder’s view is the expansion of supermarket chains and quick service restaurants across the continent as these attract new investment. See For African farming to become more efficient and competitive, there needs to be more investment in science and technology to help in its transformation from rural subsistence to wealth creation, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).Food and agricultural markets in Africa are forecast to grow to US$1 trillion by 2030 Read

Learn how Simmons Foods produces high-protein feed ingredient from wastewater.

Simmons Foods produces a high-protein feed ingredient from dissolved air flotation skimmings from poultry processing to turn a wastewater product into a valuable resource. The PRO*CAL process allows 130 million pounds of material to be recycled into the food chain each year rather than being land applied.