Keeping poultry flocks healthy during seasonal transitions

Poultry care during weather changes

Weather conditions and chicken breed selection

!Keeping poultry healthy during seasonal transitions

Ms. Dinh Thi Thuy Trang, from Thanh Hung hamlet (Hoa An commune), consistently maintains free-range raising of over 500 commercial chickens in her garden.

Previously, Ms. Dinh Thi Thuy Trang from Thanh Hung hamlet (Hoa An commune) only raised chickens to supplement her family's meals. However, realizing that her hillside garden was spacious, fertile, and lush with greenery year-round—highly favorable for large-scale livestock farming under an integrated economic model—she decided to make a systematic investment in this sector, focusing on free-range chickens as her primary direction. Thanks to this, she expanded her flock to hundreds of birds, achieving significant economic returns.

According to Ms. Trang, raising poultry in mountainous areas with erratic weather requires selecting suitable breeds with strong disease resistance. After several trial batches, she chose black chickens and crossbred Mia chickens, which adapt well to the local climate. Raised in a free-range garden environment, the chickens yield firm, delicious meat favored by consumers and restaurants, consistently fetching high prices.

Thanks to the proper application of farming techniques, Ms. Trang's family poultry flock has grown steadily. During the recent Lunar New Year, her family sold nearly 1,000 commercial chickens, earning over 200 million VND, with profits exceeding 60 million VND after deducting expenses.

Learning from previous years and realizing that food is often scarce after Tet, Ms. Trang did not leave the pens empty immediately after cleaning them post-Tet sales, but promptly started overlap batches to maintain supply.

Currently, she maintains more than 500 chickens of various ages in her garden, ensuring income every month. At the same time, she is preparing to bring in about 1,200 more chicks. Her goal is not only to raise broilers, but also to expand into producing commercial eggs and supplying quality, disease-free breeding stock to local farmers.

!Keeping poultry healthy during seasonal transitions

On hot days, livestock farmers need to provide adequate drinking water and supplement vitamins and minerals to boost the immunity of their herds and flocks.

Sharing her experience in raising healthy, thriving chickens, Ms. Trang along with many local households stated that farmers must strictly adhere to "biosecure farming" techniques. Accordingly, they must ensure nutritious feed, complete vaccinations, clean drinking water, and supplementary vitamins, electrolytes, and minerals for the flock, especially during hot summer days. Therefore, large-scale poultry farmers often invest in automatic drinking systems for chickens, while replenishing water daily and cleaning the systems regularly to prevent water contamination from droppings and dust, which affects the flock's health.

Assessing the erratic weather during the seasonal transition affecting livestock, Hoang Thi Hieu, Deputy Head of the Cao Bang Provincial Sub-Department of Animal Husbandry, said that during seasonal transitions, livestock are susceptible to dangerous diseases such as avian influenza, infectious bronchitis, pasteurellosis, or coccidiosis... The reason is that sudden shifts between sun and rain, as well as high humidity, exhaust the animals and lower their resistance. To proactively prevent and control epidemics in advance, the Cao Bang Provincial People's Committee issued Official Letter No. 626/UBND-KT on March 12, 2026, on the implementation of the Month for Environmental Cleaning, Disinfection, and Detoxification, as well as Phase 1 Livestock Vaccination in 2026, aiming to ensure that at least 80% of the total livestock subject to vaccination are fully vaccinated.

According to Ms. Hieu, during hot days, livestock's demand for water is very high, so farmers need to provide adequate clean drinking water; regularly clean, disinfect, and sterilise livestock barns. They should proactively administer all necessary vaccines and supplement vitamins, electrolytes, and minerals into diets to boost resistance for livestock.