Human Resource shortage in Poultry Farms

Human Resource shortage in Poultry Farms!

Gone are the days when people would stand outside for work in and around poultry farms. As on date most of the farms are running on 75% of the work force, the other employees feel the burden and they too in a long run will be looking for the other opportunities. In the below paragraph will be sharing some thought s based on personal experience.

Where do we require employees?

Layers

• Feed production
• Unloading of raw materials
• Picking of eggs
• Loading of eggs and cull birds on to loader vehicles
• Cleaning of the premises (Sheds/houses, go downs , Trays and egg room)
• Vaccination

Broilers

• Feed production(In case of own production)
• Racking of litter to control ammonia in the farms
• Lifting of cull birds on to trader vehicles
• Cleaning of premises

Based on the above and by simply having a calendar (Local language preferable) we can frame out which are very critical operations and how many employees required for a certain task.

Eg 1: For vaccination we require experienced and seasoned employees.

Eg 2: For unloading of raw materials, we do not require highly experienced person.

1. Feed production

Based on the capacities and the standards we know the feed to be issued, based on which we can calculate the feed requirements mostly employees will be on leave, when we pay the salary for week or month, need to plan 2 to 3 days feed requirement and need to produce in advance, as most of the silos in layers are designed for storing 5 to 10 tons of feed. Can also have contract laborers who have experience in feed production, where normally the contractor will charge for tonnage of feeds rather than hours, one more important thing is to have medicine premixes ready for chick, grower & layer. So while mixing the ratios will be uniform.

2. Unloading of raw material

For this activity normally we will have a set of people (call ammalis) with a team lead, most of the farmers out source this activity , in case we have our own employees need to plan in a way multiple tasks are not done in a single day(else next day they are going to report sick). As maize (30% to 50% of feed) can be stored and used, we can procure maize in the available months of kharif- Oct, Nov or Dec and rabi- Feb, mar & april based on the above we can plan our resources.

3. Picking of Eggs

This task has to be done daily, and requires experienced staff. In case of local festivals, state and national festivals we will be seeing all or 80% of the staff not coming.

To avoid the above we need to have,

• Multi religion employees in our premises.
• If the above not possible need to recruit contract employees, but before that need to train them properly in picking & placing the eggs in crates.
• If the above two are not possible, need to give very high incentives for employees so they come on that particular day to pick eggs, compare this with loss of eggs (Breakage & wastage), dust on the eggs, the incentive we give is minimal compared to the loss in eggs.

4. Loading of Eggs & birds (cull) on to trader vehicles.

This is basically interlinked with demand & supply in the market when the demand is more the no. of vehicles for eggs & cull birds will be more, vice versa in the months of august the demand will be less.

We require employees for segregating the eggs, loading the eggs on to trader vehicles, as is the custom trader normally pays some money to load the eggs, and the farmer based on the quality will pay money.

One very important factor here is the time mis match between the collection of eggs & loading of trader vehicles , which will be avoided by a simple Example given below,

As birds will be lifting mostly during the night times, need to plan our employees schedule based on the time when the traders come for collection and accordingly need to load.

5. Cleaning the premises

Cleaning is very important activity in the farm, ensuring bio security of both the birds and surrounding villages as most of premises are comparatively big, cleaning the premises is tedious task.

Scheduling of cleaning,

• Cleaning of houses
• Cleaning of tresses
• Cleaning of feed mill
• Cleaning of egg godown
• Cleaning of premises

6. Vaccination

Mereks ‘ and de-beaking of birds are very critical, compared to other vaccines. As we are sure of the date of arrival of chicks, need to plan our vaccination schedule based on local festivals, availability of vaccinators (giving them enough notice)