Poultry are domesticated birds kept by humans for the purpose of harvesting useful animal products such as meat, eggs or feathers. The practice of raising poultry is known as poultry farming. These birds are most typically members of the superorder Galloanserae (fowl), especially the order Galliformes. The term also includes waterfowls of the family Anatidae but does not include wild birds hunted for food known as game or quarry.
Breed broiler is any chicken that is bred and raised specifically for meat production. Most commercial broilers reach slaughter weight between four and six weeks of age, although slower growing breeds reach slaughter weight at approximately 14 weeks of age. Typical broilers have white feathers and yellowish skin. Broiler or sometimes broiler-fryer is also used sometimes to refer specifically to younger chickens under 2.0 kilograms, as compared with the larger roasters.
Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Limited, a company of the Charoen Pokphand Group, is an agro-industrial and food conglomerate headquartered in Thailand. It is one of the world's largest producers of feed and shrimp, and is also a global top three producer of poultry and pork.
Gold Kist was a large chicken producing company in the southern United States. It was founded in 1933 by D.W. Brooks, a University of Georgia agronomy instructor as the Cotton Producers Association, a cooperative to help farmers in Carrollton, Georgia, market cotton. It soon grew and diversified into fields such as fertilizer and retailing farm supplies. It soon entered the poultry business. In 1998 it exited the agronomy business to focus on protein products, primarily chicken but also pork. In 2004, with the approval of its membership, it converted from being a cooperative to a for-profit stock-ownership company, listed on NASDAQ. In 2006, Gold Kist was acquired by Pilgrim's Pride.
East Punjab was a province of India from 1947 until 1950. It consisted parts of the Punjab province that remained in India following the partition of the province between the new dominions of Pakistan and the Indian Union by the Radcliffe Commission in 1947. The mostly Muslim western parts of the old Punjab became Pakistan's West Punjab, later renamed as Punjab Province, while the mostly Hindu and Sikh eastern parts remained with India.
Chicken is the most common type of poultry in the world. Owing to the relative ease and low cost of raising chickens—in comparison to mammals such as cattle or hogs—chicken meat and chicken eggs have become prevalent in numerous cuisines.
Perdue Farms is the parent company of Perdue Foods and Perdue AgriBusiness, based in Salisbury, Maryland. Perdue Foods is a major chicken, turkey, and pork processing company in the United States. Perdue AgriBusiness ranks among the top United States grain companies. Perdue Farms has 2021 annual sales of $8 billion.
Foster Farms is an American poultry company. The company has been privately owned since 1939. It was operated by the Foster family since 1939 until recently, now operated and owned by Atlas Holdings, after their purchase of the company in 2022. The company is based in Livingston, California. Operations are concentrated on the West Coast, but the company also maintains a small number of locations on the East Coast. The company specializes in a variety of chicken and turkey products advertised as fresh and naturally locally grown.
Poultry farming is the form of animal husbandry which raises domesticated birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys and geese to produce meat or eggs for food. Poultry – mostly chickens – are farmed in great numbers. More than 60 billion chickens are killed for consumption annually. Chickens raised for eggs are known as layers, while chickens raised for meat are called broilers.
Godrej Agrovet Limited is an Indian company which operates in the animal feed and agribusiness sectors. The company, which is part of the highly diversified Godrej Group, had a turnover of around Rs. 3100 Cr in FY 2012–13. Godrej Agrovet's chairman is Nadir Godrej. The company's subsidiary, Astec LifeSciences, manufactures agrochemicals.
The Kuroiler is a hybrid breed of chicken developed by the Keggfarms Group in Gurgaon, Haryana. Kuroilers are derived from crossing either coloured broiler males with Rhode Island Red females, or, White Leghorn males crossed with female Rhode Island Reds.
Cherkizovo is a Moscow-based Russian food company that is a major producer and processor of poultry and pork.
The broiler industry is the process by which broiler chickens are reared and prepared for meat consumption. Worldwide, in 2005 production was 71,851,000 tonnes. From 1985 to 2005, the broiler industry grew by 158%.
Suguna Foods Private Limited is a billion-dollar Indian multinational food products company headquartered in Coimbatore, India. The company was started in 1984 and is involved in broiler farming, hatcheries, feed mills, processing plants, and vaccines manufacturing for poultry. It markets and exports broiler chicken, frozen chicken, chicken eggs, and is the largest poultry company in India.
Shanthi Feeds Limited is an Indian multinational food products company headquartered in Coimbatore, India. The company was started in 1988 and is involved in broiler farming, hatcheries, feed mills for poultry and cattle, farming of soya, corn and wind energy projects. It markets and exports broiler chicken, frozen chicken, chicken eggs. The company has a production capacity of nearly 47 Million birds per annum.
Ugachick Limited, whose complete name is Ugachick Poultry Breeders Uganda Limited, but is commonly referred to as Ugachick, is a poultry breeding and marketing company in Uganda.
Feed manufacturing refers to the process of producing animal feed from raw agricultural products. Fodder produced by manufacturing is formulated to meet specific animal nutrition requirements for different species of animals at different life stages. According to the American Feed Industry Association (AFIA), there are four basic steps:
- Receive raw ingredients: Feed mills receive raw ingredients from suppliers. Upon arrival, the ingredients are weighed, tested and analyzed for various nutrients and to ensure their quality and safety.
- Create a formula: Nutritionists work side by side with scientists to formulate nutritionally sound and balanced diets for livestock, poultry, aquaculture and pets. This is a complex process, as every species has different nutritional requirements.
- Mix ingredients: Once the formula is determined, the mill mixes the ingredients to create a finished product.
- Package and label: Manufacturers determine the best way to ship the product. If it is prepared for retail, it will be "bagged and tagged," or placed into a bag with a label that includes the product's purpose, ingredients and instructions. If the product is prepared for commercial use, it will be shipped in bulk.
K&N's is a Pakistani multinational poultry and frozen food company based in Karachi, Pakistan. It was founded in 1964 by Khalil Sattar with his wife, Naushaba Khalil, hence the company name K&N's.
Antibiotic use in the United States poultry farming industry is the controversial prophylactic use of antibiotics in the country's poultry farming industry. It differs from the common practice in Europe, where antibiotics for growth promotion were disallowed in the 1950s.
The WIMEX Group is an internationally active German company in the meat and agricultural industry, based in Köthen, Saxony-Anhalt. With an annual capacity of 435.455 million hatching eggs, it is the largest producer of day-old chicks for chicken fattening in Europe and one of the world's largest suppliers of broiler chickens of the Cobb breed. Its revenue in 2021 was €295,158 million. Just under 50 percent of the company's shares are owned by the PHW Group.
₹ 50 billion (2018)