Dok Tilaok

Transferring to Blogspot (http://doktilaok.blogspot.com)

doktilaok — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:09:06 +0000

Dear fellow gamebird enthusiasts, this will be the last post I will be making for this website. I will be moving to http://doktilaok.blogspot.com please inform our friends of the move. The current information contained here will be available in my new site. Moving forward, all new information will only be available in the new site. When you visit my new site, please take time to participate in the poll. We are trying to find out what is your favorite rooster. See you there!!!

Fowl Pox

doktilaok — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:28:47 +0000

Fowl Pox is a viral disease that is commonly spread by biting insects especially mosquitoes. It can also be transmitted to another chicken when the chicken inhales the fowl pox virus. There are 2 forms of the disease. The first form is called the dry type, this is what is present in the photo. The second form is the wet type or diphtheritic, the pox lesions can be seen with in the oral cavity until the trachea. The second form commonly accompanied with respiratory signs. Being a viral disease, there is no recommended treatment. The best way to prevent this disease is thru vaccination. In gamebirds, this is usually given on the 14th day of age and repeated when they are about 2 months old. The vaccine is delivered using a pricker which is dipped into the vaccine. The pricker is then inserted into the wing web. A good thing about the fowl pox vaccine is that you can check if it is effective. Check the pricked wing web 7 to 10 days after and see if the pricked area became swollen or for the presence of scabs. This is an indication of a positive take. If there seems to be no reaction, you should repeat vaccination.
Some reasons for failure are wrong storage of vaccines or vaccine was delivered into the feathers and not the skin of the wing web. To prevent this, you can remove the feathers in the underside of the wing web before applying the vaccine. There is a new fowl pox + ILT vaccine branded as Vectormune. This vaccine prevents fowl pox and ILT.

Antibiotics

doktilaok — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 13:22:50 +0000

Antibiotics are compounds that can inhibit the growth or kill bacteria. Often times, in gamebird practice, this is commonly misused. Breeders are taught to use antibiotics for preventing disease. My personal opinion on this is that to prevent disease we must vaccinate our chickens and have a good management and health program. Antibiotics are needed for therapeutic purposes or for treatment.
Some breeders practice antibiotic flushing, this is the giving of antibiotics to their chickens even with out any apparent signs of disease. This is usually done by giving a lower dose of an antibiotic for a 3 day period.
If you decide to implement this practice my advice is to give the treatment dose for 5 days. My reason is that when we give a short and mild dose, this creates a situation for tolerance build up of bacteria to that antibiotic.

Brooding

doktilaok — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:58:30 +0000

Electric Heater for Brooding

Baby chicks can’t regulate their temperature for the first 5 days of their life. Its only at 2 weeks of age that their thermoregulation will be well developed. This is the reason that we supply an external source of heat. There are two types of brooding in gamebirds.

The first type is the natural method or hen brooding, it has an advantage for the instinct development of the young chick. The disadvantage would be that you won’t be able to maximize your hen for breeding if she has to brood her chicks. The danger also of this method is that the hen may be harboring disease causing micro-organisms that may be passed on to the chicks.

The second type is the artificial method, and the most common way is by using an incandescent bulb. The rule of 1 watt per chick is the usual standard. My suggestion is that if the brooder is quite big, it will be better to use several bulbs to enable the equal distribution of heat. For example, if your brooder is good for 50 chicks, lets put two 25 watt bulbs instead of one 50 watt bulb. There are some farms that use electric heaters I will include a photo in this post. I saw this in the brooders of Vice Governor Joson. If you get to visit the farm of Mayor Juancho Aguirre, you will see that he uses home made charcoal heaters because there is no electricity in his farm.

Egg Candling

doktilaok — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:27:17 +0000

Egg Candling is done between 7 to 10 days after setting in the incubators. This is done to find out if the eggs are fertile. All unfertile eggs are removed so that you can maximize the capacity of your incubator. If the egg is fertile, the first sign you will see is the development of blood vessels which will be clearly seen when the egg is candled. As the embryo in the egg develops, this will be seen as a dark spot inside the egg.

Copyright (c) 2009 DokTilaok

Pre-Wing Banding Preparation

doktilaok — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:13:11 +0000

March and April are the common months when our cockerels are wing banded for the local and national stag derbies. We should prepare our cockerels by doing the following:
1) 2 days before our schedule to be banded give them vitamins and electrolytes. Continue on till 2 days after they are banded. This will be a total of 5 days.
2) Inquire what is the approximate time the banding team will arrive at your farm, keep constant communication with them so that you will have all your cockerels to be banded already catched and prepared about 15 mins before estimated arrival time of the banding team. It is best to pre-screen them and dont include anymore cockerels with less than 4 primary feathers in both wings.
3) Keep the cockerels in a cool and comfortable place, do not over crowd them in small cages.
4) It is best not to let the vehicles of the banding team enter your farm, this is to ensure bio security for they have been to numerous farms before you.
5) Prepare a foot bath with disinfectant or a spray bottle with disinfectant for the banding team. Ask them to dip their footwear or spray it till the soles are very wet. Also prepare a bottle of alcohol for the disinfection of the pliers and hands of the banding team. These disinfectants should be used before they enter your farm and also before they leave your farm.

Copyright (c) 2009 DokTilaok

BGBA formerly BBA Bakbakan Pre-Banding Meeting

doktilaok — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:57:40 +0000

We will have a Bakbakan pre-banding meeting on March 26, 2009 which falls on a Thursday. This will be at 2pm, for meeting venue details feel free to call or text me at +639175408081. We will tackle the wing banding requirements, how we will go about the banding and important matters regarding the banding. A short technical seminar will be given on Bio security for banding before the meeting proper. The earlier scheduled meeting for tomorrow March 18 was postponed so that we can discuss any important matters that will be taken up during the General Membership Meeting of the NFGB on March 20.

Copyright (c) 2009 DokTilaok

BBA is now BGBA

doktilaok — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:51:35 +0000

Fellow BBA or Bulacan Breeders Association members, our association is duly registered already in SEC but we had to change our association name. There is already another poultry association registered in SEC using BBA. It is official, we are now BGBA Bulacan Gamefowl Breeders Association. Thanks to Atty Punzalan for getting our association registered.

Copyright (c) 2009 DokTilaok

Bakbakan Wing Banding on April 1, 2009

doktilaok — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:23:32 +0000

I would just like to inform all those who will be banded for Bakbakan that the banding will start on April 1, 2009 instead of the earlier announcement of March 24, 2009. This was the directive given by the executive committee of the NFGB after the meeting held last Monday. The officers decided to stick with the date specified in the banding rules which is April 1 of each year.

May I also invite our members, and soon to be members to join the coming Bulang Bulang Bull Stag Derby.

Copyright (c) 2009 DokTilaok

Learnings from a Pro

doktilaok — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:34:07 +0000

As I mentioned during my last post, I will share some learnings from an old time conditioner, a fellow gamebird lover and to top it off a conditioner of Johnny Jumper, Mr Augie Caminos.

When conditioning a rooster, we commonly make the mistake of over doing things, we make certain programs that are too much like flipping them 50 times… so on and so forth. Our roosters can’t talk but commonly we do the worst and ignore them. For instance, during a work out, your rooster is already breathing so hard and panting, his wings are drooping and yet we ignore this as a signal that our rooster is saying: “Boss, I cant take anymore of this… give me a break!”

Let us let the rooster work itself and not work the rooster. To illustrate, instead of doing too many flips during table work out, it would be best to put the rooster in a fly pen with the lower portion covered but beside a pen containing a hen. The tendency is that because of the covering the rooster cant see the hen and will be encouraged to fly to the roost so that he can see her. But if he is too tired he himself will choose to stay in the ground. More to come…

Copyright (c) 2009 DokTilaok