Dr. Mojsan Saeed (Gold Medalist)
Assistant Farm Manager
Be Be Jan Protein Farms Ltd
| Over View |
A veterinarian is a person who is concerned with the healthcare of all living beings including the humanbeing, though the main area of focus for a vet-erinarian is the well being of the domesticated ani-mals. which serve the mankind one way or the other.
Pakistan is an agricultural country and livestock has a major contribution in the agriculture sector.
In our rurual areas, most of the people make their both ends meet by keeping 2-5 buffaloes or cattle.
Rearely herds of sheep and goats are also seen.But this large animal sector has not yet taken the shape of an industry in Pakistan Poultry sector.
Though in its evolutionary phase, is developing into an organized industry and is a great challenging sector for a veterinarian.
Most of the poultry companies in our country appoint the fresh graduates from the veterinary in-stitution as a farm manager or assistant farm manager.
But most of the time it is observed that a fresh veterinarian fails to comply with the requirements of his designatipn.
What are the causes of this failure? Pakistan Veterinary Medical Association and Pakistan Poultry Association should take up the matter and serious efforts should be made to address the situation.
Ironically. the syllabus of the veterinary degree is not revised and adjusted according to the requirement of the field for the last many years.
A feasible solution of the problem is that after the completion of three quarter of the duration of the degree session, student should opt for the field in which he is most interested for example poultry sector, large animal sector, pharmacy sector, field of research etc.
And then the courses should be adjusted according to the requirements of that particular field. Following courses should be included in the poultry major to produce a good poultry specialist.
| Construction of poultry Farm |
This course should include the complete knowledge regarding the construction of a poultry farm. A veterinarian Should know how to construct a poultry farm.
What are its dimensions, What is meant by environmentally controlled house, what are the requirements for a proper ventilation of a poultry house, what is meant by insulation etc.
Frequent visits to the various poultry farms can prove beneficial in the understanding of this subject.
Poultry Healthcare
Intensive Poultry farming is going on in our country. A Scientific monitoring of the poultry health is must for the survival of this industry.
A good Veterinarian should know how to maintain the flock in a good condition, what are the various diseases of poultry, how to diagnose the various diseases, knowledge of the avian nutrition.
It should be kept in mind that only a person who has a complete command on his subject can prove a good manager.
Flock Evaluation
A farm manager needs to evaluate the efficiency of this flock. For this purpose he should know how to measure the different zoo-technical parameters e.g. daily feed consumption, daily weight.
FCR, Daily water consumption. Record keeping is an art and a good manager in one who keeps the record of each and every thing pertaining to his flock.
Laboratory Management
This course should cover the various aspects of a diagnostic laboratory management. A poultry specialist should know how and where to construct a laboratory and what are the different equipment used in the various serological (ELISA, serum neutralization test, HA test, HI test) and bacteriological (culture and sensitivity test, isolation and identification of different bacteria) tests for the diagnosis of the poultry diseases as well as in the proximate analysis of the feed and detection of the mycotoxins in the feed.
Knowledge of poultry Equipment
This course should include the complete study of equipment used in the poultry industry e.g. feeding equipment, watering equipment, ventilation equipment, brooding equipment etc.
A good farm manager should have a complete knowledge of the use. maintenance and repair of all the mechanica equipment.
Knowledge of Electricity
The complete information of electricity is pre-requisite for good management, because many electrical equipment are used in the poultry farming e.g. electrical fans. lighting system, auto-systems for feeding and watering etc.
As in modem poultry farming, the trend has changed from open houses to the environmentally controlled houses and any type of electrical fault can lead to disaster. So a farm manager can only man age the situation if he is at home in the rectification of these faults
Our Management
The most important and critical thing in the farm management is how to control the labour. The inclusion of a subject covering labour management (psychology) is need of the hour.
Any type of loose management concrete problems. To kick out a lazy and misfit worker is not a good management rather a manager should know how to get him into work.
This subject can also cover the aspect of pubic dealing because many veterinarians select to join the marketing sector and the knowledge of public
Hatchery Management
In most of the companies the hatchery manager is a non-technical (non veterinarian) person.On enduring the reason format he Production manager of a renowned poultry company by the author.he told that a veterinarian does not know even the ABC of the incubating machines.
So a subject covering the maintenance and repair of the hatchery equipment as well as the optimum hatchery environment for producing the good quality chicks should be included in the degree course.
In short a poultry specialist should have the knowledge of every aspect of poultry. He should be strong theoretically as well as practically. Application of the knowledge is the basic thing and a person master in this art is the master of the day.
Poultry Farming Suffers from neglect
Poultry farming has spread across Pakistan, creatlinked network. These farms can be seen in and around the big cities, in small towns and in the remotest villages of the country.