Chicken Farm Success Story in India
I recently went to India to train and work with our new Dealership and spent 16 days meeting with many people in many farms, industries, government, municipalities, universities and processing plants over 16 days.
One of the challenges that we always face, is that people don’t like having to spend money on water for farms, let alone having the trust and confidence to spend it with the right people. At the end of my visit, I felt that there was a huge market in India and that we needed to show them how we can help them to accomplish better operations through their water.
One of the first farms I visited was a broiler chicken farm. This gentleman worked very hard to set up his farm for success. He had two houses (chicken barns) full of 13,700 birds. When we met, he had just finished spending a large amount of money on antibiotics; apparently a regular occurrence. Even though his antibiotics were costing him a lot more than the Oxy Blast protocol that I suggested, he was hesitant to consider my alternatives. The reason he was sceptical, is that he did not know what results he would actually see. He already knew what results to expect with his antibiotics, but he did not know what the Oxy Blast protocol would do. When you don’t know what to expect, anything seems too expensive, since you can’t put a value to it; it’s only natural.
Despite his doubts, he still gave us the go ahead, but then retracted, because the Dealer gave him the price for his complete turn (42 days) and he thought that it was too expensive. I reminded him that we have qualified experts on staff, i.e. Veterinarians, Nutritionists, Water Physiologists, Filtration Experts and Farmers. These are all seasoned professionals; just another major difference that sets us apart from other companies in our industry which adds further value to our product and service. We are the experts at what we do. When our customers follow our protocol, 99.9% of them keep buying the product and keep using it.
I did tell him what he “could see”; cleaner water and nipples not plugging up, lower death loss, better feed conversion, better weight gains, less leg and tendon problems, drier litter, increased water consumption, lowered medication cost, improved daily gains, and a natural de-worming effect. I know you are all waiting to find out what happened, so here it is.
On June 10th, my Indian Dealer and I talked about going back to this chicken farm and seeing if we can get the customer to try our product. When he got there, the farm was 20 days into stress and the death loss was at 33 a day; it was over 5%, and at 33 a day, every day was going higher than 5%, because as the days passed, it was compounding. His birds were dying because of E-coli and Chronic Respiratory Disease (CRD).
Day 1 June 11th – Death loss down by 1 bird, yes, I said 1 bird. I got a call asking, “Are you sure this will work?” Obviously the farmer and the new Dealer had doubts, while under stress. We live in a fast-paced society and want something to work overnight; we want to see instant results. I told them that we cannot solve problems that have been there for over 20 days, in one night. I asked for 1 week to see if things turn around to their satisfaction. After 20 days, how deep do you think this infestation has gone and how much of a hold do you think it has on those chicks?
Day 2 June 12th – Death loss was down a little more (I cannot remember exactly what they said but it was not significant). We talked a little more and kept with the stringent protocol. Also, I found out that the temperature was 42 C. (wow, that is hot!), so we adjusted a couple of things to accommodate that.
Day 3 June 13th – Adjustments we made were starting to work. Death loss started to decrease in nice numbers; continued with the protocol.
Day 4 June 14th – Birds drinking more water, death loss down about 25%. We are seeing definite results. I called to speak with the Dealer who was with farmer. The farmer is very happy, and the results are showing him that we know what we are doing. Birds are happier and he is on his way to having a recovery. He asked how long to continue protocol and I said, “You are at 2.5% loss; we need to bring it down to 1% as soon as possible”. The birds only have 18 days left and we need to get some weight on them to save the farmer from losses to his profits.
Day 6 June 16th - Death loss is now down to 1.9%; which is fantastic in only 6 days, and the farmer is confident that it will continue to drop as time goes by. In fact, he has commissioned the local Dealer to be in charge of ALL water and disinfecting protocols on his farm. In 14 days, happy, healthy birds leave for the market with a happy, relieved farmer. They then have only 3 days to clean up and prepare for the new batch of chicks to arrive.
The word got out about what we did on this farm. This brought phone calls from other farms and now we are hearing about death losses of 15-50% from farmers and operators who want to talk to us. I developed a protocol for India suitable for every chicken house we go into. We are going to always assume the worst going in, so that we can be ahead of the potential problems. We have so many people calling the local Dealer that we are going to be on Skype every day now.
Now, we have done this on many farms with all different kinds of livestock and animals; helped them with their issues and ensure their success. We have a good track record in all species as all our Dealers know. We continue to help these farmers make more money and have a smoother running operation, especially since farming has taken a major blow in many parts of the world
A very big part of what I do is because I love helping people. I love it when someone can say thanks Zak you really helped us. That is such a good feeling; we hear it a lot and it is very gratifying. What a great business we are all in!
