SYSTEMS OF POULTRY KEEPING

Deep litter and cage system are the two systems of intensive poultry keeping.

Deep litter system:

Under this system the birds are confined in rooms in which litter material is spread and the droppings being regularly collected and mixed with litter material to form built in litter (deep litter,. Deep litter is insulative and nutritive and therefore suitable for a wide range of climatic conditions and less care is required. Since the dropping is not removed from the room less labour is involved. But the problems are the difficulty in litter management during humid climate; spread of diseases, incidence of intestinal parasites and prevalence of vices like feather plucking, cannibalism etc.

Cage system:
In this system the birds are kept in cages made of wire mesh arranged in rows supported by iron bars. The advantages are less space, early to control diseases, parasites etc., and easy to keep accurate records enabling easy culling out unproductive birds. But this system is not suitable for places with extreme climate.

Moreover high initial investment is required. Further there may be problems of wet dropping and flies in the sheds.Thus each system has got certain advantages and disadvantages, hence the choice depends upon availability of land, climatic conditions, type of bird etc. Sometimes a combined system is followed i.e. the chicks are reared under deep litter system and later the pullets are kept in laying cages.