Operating game farm while away
Warning: Operating game fowl farm while away is difficult.
Why maintain a farm while you are away?
If you love the game cock you’ll love to have some even if you’re away. The knowledge alone that you have some gamecocks somewhere would be enough satisfaction and challenge to keep you going ahead with your fancy.
This is the very reason, many game cock fanciers venture on game fowl farms even if they are not around to manage the operations themselves. This, despite the fact that they know of the great risk it entails.
Big risks:
The main problem in maintaining a game farm in absentia is the personnel.
1. Untrustworthy personnel who will steal or connive between themselves or with others to defraud you.
2. Incompetent management and work force. They may be honest but not knowledgeable enough to run a farm.
Bigger risk:
Finding a worthy personnel is hard. The harder part though is how to detect that the persons you have hired are not worthy. The risk is hiring an unqualified personnel is high. The greater risk is if you somehow keep unqualified personnel because you don’t have the means to know and detect that the persons running your farm are not trustworthy or competent. Purposely or not they will milk you out of your hard earned money.
Know the ropes yourself.
You should learn game fowl raising yourself. Learn about breeding, brooding, raising, and fighting. If you do not know anything about the gamecock, then you will not be in the position to consult with or instruct your personnel what to do, much less determine if what they are doing is right or wrong. Or, whether they are trustworthy or not, competent or not (Read E-Books: Cockfighting Theory and Practice; P400; Simple Ideas on Breeding That Work P250; Manwal sa Praktikal na Pagpapalahi, P250; Manwal sa Pagpili at Pagkundisyon hard copy P400 free mailing).
Set accounting standards.
Know what are the norm and standard governing the different facets of game fowl raising. For example if you know the acceptable number of eggs a hen lays in a month; the acceptable eggs-to-chicks ratio; the acceptable mortality rate up to harvest; then you can calculate how many chickens you expect to harvest in a breeding season based on the number of females you used during the mating period. If your harvest is below the acceptable number of heads, then it means your people are incompetent or there might be theft or pilferage.
Another example, if you know how many kilos of feeds a chicken consumes for every particular kind (booster, starter, developer), then you can calculate if the expenses are commensurate to the number of heads harvested, of course giving allowance for your acceptable mortality and culling rate. Take note that, unless there is widespread epidemic in the entire area or locality, disease outbreak in the farm, is more often than not caused by inefficient bio-security, thus a failure in management.
Adult birds, those on cord and pens are easier to keep tract, expenses-wise and inventory-wise. For feeds you may set the consumption of adult birds at 80 grams per day. Easy as it is already constant. The harder to account are the data from hatching to harvest as feed consumption varies as chickens grow.
Farms may have different sets of standards. Beginners and start-ups are advised to copy the standards of the established operations. We at RB Sugbo have our own norms that we believe are not far different from those of the industry standards.
Another way is to require from your personnel regular recording and periodic reporting. Constantly updated records such as laying rate, fertility, hatching, culling and mortality are very useful in the reckoning of the efficiency of the whole operation. With good record-keeping weaknesses and defects in the system can be pinpointed and corrected in time.
Also regular recording and reporting will prevent “doctored” records at the end of the season or year to suit the owners accounting methods.
Also keep different charts, including a chart of the traits of your respective bloodlines. If you have records of the traits or phenotypes of your bloodlines then, with some knowledge on game fowl genetics you can more or less predict the phenotype or even the fighting styles of the offspring. Any deviation from the expected could mean either deliberate “switching’” or unintentional “mismark.”
Switching is when a caretaker switches a low-quality chicken with your real chicken which is then sold or appropriated for himself. “Switching” is downright dishonesty. “Mismarking” is when a chick is not marked correctly in accordance with its pedigree. It is plain incompetence.
Here are some details that a farm owner must learn:
1. How many eggs a hen lay in a month?
2. How many chicks a hen produce in a month?
3. How many males and how many females a hen produce in a month?
4. What is a reasonable survival rate or harvest giving allowance for mortality and culling ?
5. How many kilos of feeds a chicken consume from hatch to harvest (how many kilos booster; starter; developer)?
6. How many kilos of feeds an adult chicken consume in a month. (2.2-2.5kls)
7. Computing fixed costs and variable costs
8. Apply 50% rule to assess performance.
9. Know the expected phenotype of each mating to detect “switching” and detect “mismarks.”
10. The different charts from laying to survival rate per mating.
The truth is it is really very difficult to run a farm in absentia. Accounting-wise there will be no fool-proof formula, but only some safe guards that will keep everything within acceptable level. So good luck in running your farm while away.
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