Managing chicks, from the hatchery to your farm
Day-old chicks. To be successful in poultry keeping, choose your chick supplier carefully and make efforts to minimise their stress to ensure you maintain good chick quality. FILE PHOTO | NMG
What you need to know:
- Ensure chicks are alert, active, and free of any obvious deformities.
- Load chick boxes so that air circulation is not impeded nor is lower boxes squashed.
- Delayed placement can result into dehydration of chicks which may cause high chick mortality and or reduced growth rates.
Hatcheries have a tremendous impact on the success of chicken rearing.
The hatch process from egg to farm can be stressful. Choose your chick supplier carefully and make efforts to minimise stress to ensure you maintain good chick quality.
These are some of the characteristics of a good quality chick:
• Well-dried, long-fluffed down.
• Bright round active eyes.
• Look active and alert.
• Have completely healed navels.
• Legs should be bright and waxy to the touch.
• Free of red hocks.
• Chicks should be free from deformities like crooked legs, twisted necks and cross beaks.
Management needs
• Place chicks from similar age and flock source in a single house: maximum five weeks difference. If you have to mix, donor flocks is recommended.
• Placement per farm should ensure an ‘all-in-all-out’ regime.
• Count chicks and confirm the number is correct.
• Delays in placement can contribute to the dehydration of chicks, resulting in higher mortality and reduced growth rates.
• Ensure chicks are alert, active, and free of any obvious deformities, unhealed navels or sign of infection.
• Ask for any relevant information on the chicks from the supplier, like vaccination history/programme.
• Transport chicks in well-ventilated but not windy vehicle, transportation must provide ideal conditions for the chicks and protect them from direct exposure to sunlight, rain or chemicals.
• Load chick boxes so that air circulation is not impeded nor is lower boxes squashed.
• Transport chicks straight from source (hatchery) to farm without any unnecessary stops.
Delays in placement can contribute to the dehydration of chicks and the delivery time should be as short as possible.
Delayed placement can result into dehydration of chicks which may cause high chick mortality and or reduced growth rates.
Accurate record keeping is essential to monitor the performance and profitability of a flock, and to enable cash flow projections to be made.
Open a record card/log/book for the flock immediately and keep complete and accurate records, of the type of feed consumed, batch number an expiry date of feed, daily intake, daily mortality/culls and daily eggs production (layers).
Dr Watson Messo [email protected]
