What are the differences between laying hens and broilers, and how to choose between them?

Laying hens: They are chickens that are raised to lay eggs. The main source of income is eggs. By raising laying hens on a large scale, you can earn income by selling eggs. I have a client who used to raise broilers, but now he is transitioning to raising laying hens mainly because he has friends and resources for raising laying hens.

Raising laying hens requires professional breeding equipment and technology. A chicken house with a scale of 10,000 laying hens requires at least hundreds of thousands or millions of investment in one piece of equipment. It also requires professional technology, feed formula and egg sales channels. The daily feed cost of laying hens is about 3 cents per chicken, and eggs can be sold for 70 to 80 cents when the market is good, and finally there is a profit for weeding out chickens. Generally, white chickens and yellow chickens are raised, so those cheap chickens you see in the market may come from laying hen farms.

Of course, there are also farmers who raise native eggs. They are all free-range and need a certain range for the chickens to move around. The egg production rate is relatively low, but the nutrition is better, and the price of eggs is also high.

Broiler chicken: It is what we usually call a delicacy on the table. Of course, there are many types of broilers. In our rural areas, we generally raise native chickens, which are also a type of broiler chickens. They generally grow slowly but are rich in nutrients and flavor.

The broiler chickens of those companies and large-scale farms are also mainly white and yellow. Take the chickens of KFC and McDonald's, for example, they are all white-feathered chickens. They grow very fast. They can usually be put on the market in more than 40 days, and the weight can reach six or seven kilograms.  The breeding conditions for this kind of chicken can be lower than those for laying hens, but certain skills are required, otherwise, the consequences of infectious diseases will be disastrous.

In addition, we ordinary people have raised broiler chickens, and there are many varieties and specifications. Chickens weigh from 3 pounds to more than 12 pounds. It depends on your local market demand to choose which breed to raise.

Broiler chickens: The advantage is that the time to market is short, but the disadvantage is that breeding risks are high and they are easily affected by price fluctuations, thus reducing economic income and making breeding more tiring.

Laying hens: The advantage is that the price tends to be stable and it is easier to raise them. The disadvantage is that the breeding cycle is relatively longer, taking about 500 days.

In fact, no matter whether raising broiler chickens or raising layer chickens, both have their own advantages and risks, and the breed depends mainly on the needs of individuals.

1. Broiler

1 Introduction. Broiler chicken is a very famous kind of poultry in my country. It has a long history of breeding in my country, dating back to 4,000 years ago. Its main value lies in its chicken and eggs, which have high nutritional value.

2. Advantages of breeding. When broiler chickens are raised, the feeding cycle is very short, so this is one of its obvious advantages. Generally, it only takes less than two months to raise broiler chickens before they are ready for slaughter.

3. Disadvantages of breeding. When broiler chickens are raised, the risk is relatively high, because it is prone to some diseases. If the prevention and treatment are not timely, there may be a large area of death, which will cause certain losses to one's own economy. And although the short feeding cycle has certain advantages, it is also an obvious disadvantage. When breeding, it is very likely that due to the short cycle, some price fluctuations in the market will affect your economic benefits. And raising broiler chickens is relatively more tiring.

2. Laying hens

1 Introduction. Laying hens refers to a kind of chicken that specializes in laying eggs, and there are still certain differences between them and broiler chickens. In recent years, the development of laying hens in my country has been very fast. Breeding laying hens has become a relatively popular breeding project.

2. Breeding advantages. In recent years, the price of eggs in the market has been stable regionally. This has a certain relationship with its long breeding cycle, and it will be less affected by price fluctuations. Therefore, this is also an obvious advantage in its breeding. Moreover, raising laying hens is not as tiring as broiler chickens, and it is easier to manage in all aspects, so this is also an advantage.

4. Breeding disadvantages. One of the main disadvantages of laying hens is that their feeding cycle is relatively long. Like broiler chickens, they can be ready for slaughter in about two months, but laying hens generally takes about 500 days.

The chicken industry is further divided into laying hens and broiler hens. In terms of the start of professional farming, laying hens are earlier than broiler hens. For consumers, there should be more opportunities to eat eggs than chicken every day. But at present In terms of the development level of large-scale breeding, laying hens also lag behind the broiler industry.

Recently, the Farmer's Daily published a list of China's top 500 agricultural enterprises in 2021, and 50 poultry farming enterprises were on the list. Among them, there are 9 laying hen enterprises, one egg broiler concurrently operating enterprise, and 40 meat machinery enterprises. Why does the development of layer-scale enterprises lag behind that of broiler enterprises? There are several reasons for this.

The first is that the total output value of the broiler industry is higher than that of the layer industry. The output value of the broiler industry has exceeded 200 billion in recent years, while the total output value of the layer industry is less than 100 billion. This is of course due to the rapid growth of chicken consumption. , and egg consumption has already reached a plateau, it is difficult to have a sharp increase.

Then, although the broiler chicken industry started late, it scaled up earlier than the laying hens. Although the laying hen industry started as a large state-owned chicken farmin the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the rapid decline of the state-owned chicken farm, breeding The rise of professional households has existed in the form of small-scale professional households for a long time, while broiler-scale farms started at the same time as professional households.

Of course, the most important reason for the rapid development of broiler-scale enterprises is that the broiler industry is more suitable for large-scale than the laying hen industry. From the perspective of breeding difficulty, broiler chickens have a shorter cycle, fewer immunization times, and fewer types of chicken diseases, which are easier to raise than laying hens; in terms of management, broiler chickens are easier to raise. There are few management items, only one in and one out, which is suitable for all-in and all-out factory production; while laying hen farming requires more sophisticated technology and management in these two aspects, and is more suitable for small-scale farmers; from an operational point of view, broiler chicken The sales of eggs must be closely integrated with the slaughtering ring and the cold storage section. This model is easier for large-scale enterprises to operate, while the egg sales process is relatively simple, and it is easy to operate for small-scale farming.

For small-scale layer chicken farmers, this phenomenon is actually a good thing, because it shows that we still have room to survive and will not be squeezed out of the market by large-scale enterprises, while broiler chicken farmersmay not be so lucky. The pressure is much greater in large-scale enterprises.

Disclaimer: The materials and information published in this article are mainly used for learning and communication. We respect original authors and units, and support genuine editions. If this article violates your rights, please leave a message directly.