"We do the best we can to keep our white birds as happy and healthy as possible, but sometimes mother nature doesn’t make that easy," says our White Bird Flock supervisor, Trudy Deremer. Extended heat in the summer has various effects on our birds that staff must combat.
White birds are like us when it is super hot. They want to drink water but not eat. The decreased appetite can decrease weight gain for the processing birds and negatively affect our breeders. If it is hot for extended periods of time, and the breeders are not eating as they should, the males’ semen may not be as potent, resulting in fertility issues. If the hens don’t eat as much as they should, they can go out of production, meaning they stop laying eggs. Artificial insemination is not a good experience for birds that have had too much water and not enough food. It can cause the hens to vomit during the process, causing a messy situation for the birds and staff.
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