Handling tiny chicks from hatchery to home

When farmers get their first flock, they normally start with excitement but along the way -- because of blunders they make -- end up with needless deaths. Today I will address the delicate process of handling chicks from the hatchery to your farm.

It is advisable to place chicks of similar age and from similar flock source in a single house: maximum five weeks difference if you have to mix donor flocks.

Placement per farm should ensure an ‘all-in, all-out’ regime. This is how to do it:

Count chicks and confirm if the number is correct.

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Reduce number of deaths

Remember that delays in placement can contribute to dehydration, resulting in higher chick 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, for instance vaccination history/programme.

Transport chicks in well-ventilated but not windy vehicle. Such movement must provide ideal conditions for chicks and protect them from direct exposure to sunlight, rain or chemicals.

Load chick boxes so that air circulation is not impeded nor are lower boxes squashed.

To avoid deaths, transport chicks straight from source (hatchery/ sales office) 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. Apart from chick dehydration, other issues with delays are high mortality and/ or reduced growth rates.

Finally home!

Once in the chicken house, lower the light intensity during chick placement to reduce stress. Chicks must be carefully placed and evenly distributed near feed and water throughout the brooding area. When using supplemental feed on paper, place chicks on the paper.

It is good practice to weigh five per cent of the boxes to determine day-old chick weight. Light should be brought to full intensity within the brooding area once all chicks have been placed.

Following a 1-2 hour acclimatisation period, check all systems and make adjustments if necessary. Monitor the distribution of the chicks closely during the first few days, at least twice in the day -- in the morning and when you are retiring to bed. This can be used as an indicator for any problems in feeder, drinker, ventilation or heating systems.

How to maintain chick quality

Hatcheries can 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. But what are 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 (crooked legs, twisted necks and cross beaks)

Keeping records

Accurate record keeping is essential to monitor the performance and profitability of a flock, and to enable forecasting, programming and cash flow projections to be made. It also serves to provide an early warning of potential problems. The daily records should be on display for each house.

For this reason, open a record card/ log/ book for the flock immediately.

Keep complete and accurate records, of the type of feed consumed, batch number & expiry date of feed, daily intake, daily mortality / culls and daily egg production (layers).

It is also important to weigh the flock every week. The weighing should be done on the same day and time each week.

For layers, this gives an indication of when the first egg is expected while for broilers, it indicates when the flock will reach market weights

Vaccination and medication records are also important. This should include the age of flock when vaccinated/ medicated, the vaccine/ drug used, method of administration, batch numbers and expiry dates.

Keep mortality and culls by house.

Daily feed and water consumption.

Minimum and maximum daily temperatures and humidity.

All these records are important as in disease/ poor productivity situations, they guide the veterinarian to the most probable source of the problem and best protocol to manage the situation.

[Dr Watson Messo is a veterinary surgeon. He works at Kenchic as the head vet.

[email protected]]    

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