Rainbow Chicken Limited Assistant Farmer – Broilers

Rainbow Chicken Limited Assistant Farmer – Broilers

Role Purpose:

To assist in the monitoring of the day-to-day activities at the farm. The incumbent will also take full responsibility of the site when the Farm Manager is not on site.

 Required Qualifications:

• Minimum Grade 12
• Relevant Tertiary qualification advantageous

Required Experience:

• 3 years’ experience in the Poultry environment with 1 year experience/exposure in a supervisory capacity 
• Physically fit with no allergies to bird feathers and dust

Required Knowledge and Skills:

• Knowledge:
  • Understand basic poultry nutrition, growth, anatomy and reproduction
  • Farm operations and processes
  • Ability to recognize ventilation, brooding, feeding and water requirements of the birds and make the correct adjustments
  • Operation of farm equipment

• Skills:
  • Verbal and written communication
  • Interpersonal 
  • Numeracy
  • Problem solving
  • Decision making
  • Stockmanship

Key Responsibilities:

• House Preparation prior to placement in order to create ideal conditions for bird production.
• Chick Placement – co –ordinate and monitor staff, liaise with the hatchery, chick placing foremen.
• Post placement of chicks (Brooding conditions) – Evaluation of chick quality, recording of vent temperatures, temperature setting.
• Growing conditions – Daily monitoring of the bird performance which entails feed intake, water recordings, temp and humidity recordings, mortality recordings.
• Ventilation management – Adjust ventilation static pressure to achieve minimum and maximum bird requirement.
• Water Management – Water sampling prior to placement, flushing of the water lines three times in a week, sanitation of house water reticulation, daily water pressure setting and nipple heights.
• Feed management – Receiving and Recording of feed deliveries relative to feed programme; daily bin stock counts; management of feed heights; adjustment of feeder levels according to bird’s size; monitoring of feed quality (% of fine feed); sampling of feed when the truck arrives.
• Outsource activities – Preparation of the house environment prior to catching commencing; all documentation relative to catching need to check accuracy with the broiler planner; good communication and planning with the catching team and logistics to minimize any holding time.
• Biosecurity and Farm sanitation – Maintaining an effective biosecurity programme by practicing good hygiene, vaccination and disease prevention.
• Bird Health – Daily monitoring and activity of birds, and sending of postmortems to the laboratory as per VCD.
• Record Keeping – Keep the documentation files updated that is KFC, health and safety files; feed recording; house chart records; rodent control, mortality records.
• Staff management – Keep and update daily registers, mdwt’s, disciplinary records, training records, review meetings