Timing is a very important factor in making operations on a farm.
Debeaking is one of the operations that need to be done on a poultry farm especially in layers‘ farm. It is done to prevent cannibalism, because the birds can use the beaks to injure each other, to prevent egg eating, because when birds grow up, they can use the sharp beak to pierce and destroy eggs and debeaking also prevents feather pecking which makes the birds to spend more energy in growing new feathers which energy could be used for production.
Debeaking
Do not debeak birds at around 5 to 6 weeks because at this stage, birds are highly susceptible to infectious bursal disease (IBD) commonly known as Gumboro. It is important to reduce stress on the birds at this time because stress increases the birds‘ vulnerability to diseases.
Do not debeak at 12 weeks because at this stage, birds have attained a minimum of 1 kg and are in preparations to begin producing eggs. Debeaking at this stage causes stress and slows down the rate of growth of the birds.
The ideal age for debeaking birds is between 8 to 10 weeks of age.
