1 Basic Practice for Male Management

2 Sexing Errors
3 Separate Feeding System
4 Male to Female Ratio
Presented To: Ma’am Kanwal Rafique
Presented By: 2017-va-204, 2017-va-205, 2017-va-206
 Basic Practice for Male Management

Introduction
 Breeding flocks have only 10 % males as compared to females, but biologically
responsible to constitute 50 % of genetic make up of progeny.
 The main aim of male management is to focus on control of skeletal development,
body weight and feeding to produce enough good quality males to maintain fertility
and hatchability through out the life of flock.
 To give same priorities as that of females, proper male management is required.
 Male breeder are reared to get fertile eggs from female and then from these eggs
commercial broiler and layer flocks are produced.
 Basic Practice for Male Management

Purposes
 To obtain males with good sexual development at the time of male transfer in
females.
 To make sure the maturity of male in equilibrium with the female maturity.
 To get good number or ratio of male to females e.g. 9 to 10 (M77) or 8 (M99)
males having good health and fertility for 100 females at week 23.
 Basic Practice for Male Management

0-2 Weeks ( Brooding)

Feed control from first day
The brooding period is same as females.
The aim during brooding period is to ensure good early male chick
development and body weight uniformity.
Should be provided with a good basic brooding set-up that provides
proper access to light, heat and water.
 Basic Practice for Male Management

3-22 Weeks (Growing)

Around 4 Weeks:
Detailed inspection of flock and culling of weak and deformed birds.
Separate rearing => Separate rearing is preferred method to controlling skeletal
frame growth and body weight (good uniformity)
Mix rearing => Growing males within female population is common practice in
some regions, increased feed competition, when target weight or release weight is
obtained then males are released into females about at 4 weeks of age.
 Basic Practice for Male Management

After 15 weeks:
 In order to ensure proper testicular development, it should be higher weekly
weight gain ( +125-150 gm/week or 0.28-033 Ib/week).
Around 17 weeks:
 Make second detailed evaluation of flock to assess the sexual development of
male (comb, wattles behavior and quality of beak tipping)
 Preparation of males for successful transfer (similar level of sexual maturity).
 Birds with insufficient development are reared in special separate pen.
 Basic Practice for Male Management

20-22 Weeks (Male Transfer)

 Males are transferred within females to develop the relationship b/w males and females.
 This period is of utmost importance to future production.
 Never transfer shy, sexually underdeveloped males
 Remove the Aggressive males from the flock(place in separate pen and reintroduce
them progressively as hens become mature and ready to accept them).
 Alternative way=> Mix the males in 2-3 phases, by first pacing not more than the 6% of
mature males, mix the rest number of males when first eggs are laid.
 Basic Practice for Male Management

Male Fleshing
Fleshing should be evaluated during 3 critical periods of bird’s life
1) 16-23 weeks
2) 30-40 weeks
3) 40 weeks to depletion
Fleshing score system…..1-5 …..3 is desired and considered best practice.
 Basic Practice for Male Management
Spiking
 Addition of young males into older flock.
 Spiking is mostly performed at 35 to 40 weeks of
age.
 Spiking will assist in maintaining the optimum male
to female ratio and life-long fertility of flock.
 Vent of active and inactive males
 Basic Practice for Male Management

Types of Spiking
1) New male spiking
This method utilizes new young males (25-27 wks old) as primary spiking male.
 Extra males are moved to a “spike house” at 20-21 weeks and held until 25-28 weeks of age. (After
reaching sexual maturity and proper weight, they are used as spike males.)
 Extra males are “intermingled with the original flock” until removal to spike a second, older flock
when they are 25-27 weeks of age.
(Problem-high male density until removal can create over aggression toward the hens and each
other.)
 Basic Practice for Male Management

2)  Intra Spiking
Spike males are actually primary males taken from one house on a two house farm and
swapped with primary males from the other house.
This method of spiking is useful if a shortage of males is present and no new males can be
obtained.
These older primary males will not be as active as new spike males, especially if they are
not in good shape.
 Issues of disease are reduced with this method because you only using the males that are
presently on the farm.
 Basic Practice for Male Management
3) Back spiking
This method of spiking utilizes the use of spike (not primary) males that have been used
previously to spike another production flock.
These spike males will be from 35 to 45 wks old when utilized again the second time.
Spikes are pulled out from a production flock that is ready to sell. Males are hand selected from
the male population and placed in another flock.
Only the better fleshed males are selected to use as spiking in this method.
This method is very labor intensive and time consuming to walk the house and hand select the
desired males.
 Sexing Errors
Sexing is separation of males and females of day old chicks
1. Feather sexing (easy than vent sexing…...up to 4500
chicks/person/hour) through covert and primary feathers.
2. Vent/cloacal Sexing (extreme skills required….bump or protruded
structure inside vent indicate male otherwise female)
 Sexing Errors
Errors
 Sometimes female has black spots inside vent, this is confused with vent bumps and
declared as male…..In case of vent sexing …..sexing errors are in between 1 to 1.5 %
 Sometimes early hatching produced smaller sized chicks, feathers (covert and
primary) are not fully developed, create confusion)….In case of feather
sexing…..Sexing errors percentage between 0.3 to 0.5 %
 Generally 1 chick out of 5000 chicks
 Inexperienced/less experience person……more mistake chances in sexing.
 Separate Feeding System
Same feeding system was used in earlier days for male and female.
Its harmful effect was as males eat much faster, have greater appetite and often
became heavy with negative influence on fertility and hatchability.
It is highly recommended to use Separate Sex Feeding (SSF) in production. True SSF
implies that males should not have access to the female feed and vice versa.
It is equally important to keep the female from eating from the male feeder. Keep the
male feeder at a height that makes the males stretch slightly to eat and prevents the
females from reaching.
 Separate Feeding System
 Training is key to the success of Sex Separate Feeding. The males need to quickly
identify and use their specific feeders. The best option is to have the same type of
male feeder in rearing and production.
 Grill system is used to restrict the males to eat from females feeders.
Male feed
Starter………….0-4 weeks
Grower/ Developer…….5-22 weeks
Breeder………..23-68 weeks
 Male to Female Ratio
• To get maximum fertility there should be following male to female ratio.
• For broiler type breeders 1:12 …..male : female
• For egg production type breeders1:18 …..male : female
 References
1. Manage the modern broiler breeder male (Aviagen Brief).
2. Breeder Management Manual (Hubbard)
3. How to feather sex Day-old chicks in the Hatcher (ROSS an aviagen
brand)
4. Handbook of Poultry Production and Management.
5. Article: Male to female ratios for broiler type and egg production type
breeders (H.R Wilson & R.H Harms)
Any Question