Cobb Breeder Control Information: Male breeder control


Be informed extra about male rearing and shifting men to manufacturing homes


calendar icon 15 August 2024

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Editor’s word: This newsletter is an excerpt from the Cobb Breeder Control Information and extra articles will practice. The Information was once designed to focus on crucial components which might be possibly to persuade flock efficiency. The control suggestions mentioned have been evolved in particular for Cobb merchandise. The suggestions are supposed as a reference and complement for your personal flock control talents so as to follow your wisdom and judgement to acquire persistently excellent effects with the Cobb circle of relatives of goods. To learn or obtain all the Information or to view Cobb’s different control guides, click on right here.

The important thing to acquiring excellent hatchability from as of late’s broiler breeders is to expand feeding and control techniques that permit a proper construction of the male’s reproductive machine whilst controlling their expansion doable and capability to deposit breast muscle. The male expansion profile is the one maximum essential issue that correlates with flock fertility. Men will have to be weighed no less than weekly from one to 30 weeks of age and no less than each and every different week thereafter.

Male rearing

A excellent get started when rearing men is an important for weight uniformity in addition to excellent organ and skeletal construction, which can be correlated with long term male fertility. It’s essential that the men reach body weight goals in keeping with the Cobb usual. For easiest effects, the men will have to be reared one at a time from the ladies till housing at round 20 weeks of age.

Male body measurement is strongly influenced via the body weight expansion curve over the rearing length, with maximum body construction going on within the first 12 weeks. The 7-day body weight goal for men is 145 to 150 g (0.32 to 0.33 lb) on advert libitum feed however track reasonable day by day feed consumption in keeping with hen. Separate the heaviest and lightest men at 3 to 4 weeks. Try to get those men again on usual body weight via 8 weeks of age. Grading men is extra essential than ladies, however male body weight will also be overpassed. Controlling the body weight achieve from 12 (puberty) to twenty weeks will lend a hand to forestall outsized men and keep watch over their sexual construction.

Male density in rearing will have to be round 3.6 to 4.3 men/m2 (2.5 to three.0 ft2/male). Observe beak conditioning within the hatchery. At 8 weeks of age, maintain all men and take away any with glaring visible (phenotypic) faults that don’t meet high quality requirements, together with crooked or bent feet, skeletal abnormalities, and beak abnormalities.

Keeping up male uniformity

From 16 to twenty weeks the social order is established, and male flocks have a tendency to lose uniformity temporarily. At 16 weeks, in an effort to smash the social order and recuperate uniformity with the lighter men, imagine an extra fleshing grading. Separate all the men that experience a fleshing of two or decrease and modify the feed to extend fleshing rankings to two.5 via 20 weeks of age. At 20 to 21 weeks of age the female and male flocks will probably be blended and the social order is modified once more. Believe the use of automated grading machines to grade men. It’s faster and frequently extra actual.

Moving men to manufacturing homes

For men reared in environmentally managed homes this is a excellent apply to switch men to the manufacturing area 2 to three days previous than the ladies to lend a hand familiarize the men with their feeder machine. This will likely scale back men stealing feminine feed and toughen body weight keep watch over.

The male to feminine ratio relies on sexual synchronization and breed of men. In basic, at switch, choose sufficient men for a feminine/male ratio of 8 to 9 % in homes with slats, and 9 to ten % in homes with out slats. Make a choice best wholesome men for the preliminary matings. Those men will have to have the perfect body weight and frame situation. Any men that experience high quality defects (developmental, skeletal, and so on.), are extraordinarily or critically obese will have to no longer be transferred and will have to be got rid of and humanely euthanized. Stay the remainder reasonable weight inhabitants and somewhat heavy men for long term use in spiking techniques. In flooring operations a rather better male can be utilized if the breast muscle isn’t outsized, which will create steadiness and fertility issues.

When catching via the again, gently snatch the birds via the edges, ensuring wings are safe in opposition to the hen’s frame and wrap hands at the facets of the hen’s breasts. Position the birds into the coops, conserving the wings secured to forestall wing harm. When catching via the toes, catchers will have to grasp birds via the toes best and no longer the drumsticks to forestall bruising of the hock spaces of the legs. Birds should by no means be lifted, carried, or dragged via the wing, one leg, or neck. Birds should by no means be thrown. 

Catching should be carried out in a fashion that minimizes hen pressure and does no longer reason hen damage. If coops are used (as proven within the representation), care should be taken to forestall hen damage. Sliding coops alongside the ground would possibly reason toe accidents. Take care when ultimate the highest or lid of the coop to make certain that the heads and wings don’t seem to be stuck when the container is closed.

Managing men that showcase domination (competitive) behaviors

Deficient sexual synchronization is the principle reason why for shows of overt male dominance conduct (aggression). Those ladies have a tendency to begin manufacturing at 25 weeks whilst men are already displaying mating conduct at 23 to 24 weeks of age.

To keep watch over and save you male dominant (competitive) behaviors

  • Men will also be transferred a couple of days after ladies if they’re significantly forward of the ladies on the subject of sexual adulthood. This will likely give the ladies overtime to mature, however men will want an extra week to acclimate to a area after switch with ladies already provide. 
  • Cut back the male ratio to five % and stay the remainder men in darker area prerequisites.
  • Step by step introduce men after get started of manufacturing (> 10 %) and regularly build up the male ratio via 1 % every week thereafter.
  • For long term flocks imagine the way to toughen sexual synchronization via comparing approach to proper the male body weight curve from 12 to twenty weeks of age. For instance, strictly keep watch over male body weight within the first 4 weeks to forestall men from turning into outsized at 12 to twenty weeks.
  • Picture stimulate the men concurrently the ladies – don’t pre-light the men.
  • Outsized men (lengthy shanks) will want extra body weight to score the proper situation after 16 weeks of age which will additional build up the body weight hole with the ladies. If men are being reared on upper mild depth (10 lux; 1 fc), scale back depth to five lux (0.5 fc) to lend a hand decelerate sexual maturation throughout rearing and optimize sexual synchronization with ladies. 
  • If men are transferred early to the manufacturing area take care of the similar mild depth utilized in rearing. On the other hand, early switch can extend male sexual construction and comb measurement letting them thieve feed from the feminine feeder.
  • Save you delays in manufacturing get started with a function of achieving 1 to three % manufacturing at 24 weeks. The longer the ladies extend the beginning of egg manufacturing, the extra competitive the men is also.
Men and women will have to be disbursed round the home (as noticed within the photograph). When men showcase dominant conduct, the hens congregate within the scratch house surrounded via men or keep at the slats which can negatively have an effect on the fertility.

Any critical pressure or drop in body weight, and even stagnation of expansion from 16 to 22 weeks of age, will lead to underdeveloped and not more uniform testes within the men and end result in decrease preliminary hatches and imaginable fertility demanding situations all over the manufacturing length.

Managing weight variations between women and men

During the last 10 years, the body weight differential between women and men has been decreased significantly, improving each fertility and hatchability ranges. The desk (left) is an instance, at other ages, of what the perfect body weight differential is between women and men. The desk additionally comprises estimates for fertility and hatchability charges when those values are accomplished.

Prime fertility signifies a excellent steadiness between testicular construction (measurement and vascularization) and male mating talent. Heavy men could have superb testicle measurement but when they can not whole greater than 75 % of the tentative matings there will probably be a decline in fertility. Care for male situation via keeping up a fleshing rating between 2.0 and three.0 throughout the manufacturing length. The use of number one men which might be 11 to twelve % heavier than ladies supplies:

  • Diminished mortality and culling because of fewer leg, toe or bumblefoot issues.
  • Rapid and more straightforward mating permitting ladies to retain feather quilt on their backs.
  • Women folk are extra receptive to mating, leading to upper fertility charges.
  • Reduces body weight differential between the principle and spike men, which improves male spiking good fortune.

To learn or obtain all the Cobb Breeder Control Information or to view Cobb’s different control guides, click on right here.



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