Do you know the reason why some of your day old chicks die in their first week, and why you keep buying drugs unnecessarily? Is because you lack the skills needed in raising and brooding day old chicks.
Is your poultry house protecting your chicks from cold, rain, wind
and too much heat during brooding? Do you give your chicks enough space for
their feeding, drinking and eating during brooding?
If you really want to achieve zero or no mortality during brooding
your chicks you need to put in a lot of work to give out the best housing to
your chicks.
Brooding can be classified into natural and artificial brooding.
It is also a place of safety where baby chicks are kept warm, fed,
watered and cared for until they are able to care for themselves.
Equipment used for artificial brooding are called brooders.
• Electricity
through brooder lamps.
• Charcoal
through coal pots and brooder pots.
• Kerosene
through kerosene lamps.
• Gas through gas
brooders. These are the latest in the brooder market.
Thus, it is often difficult to maintain the body temperature
properly for the first few weeks of life, as birds might be subjected to
chilling and cold if you don’t properly introduce enough heating source for
them.
10 things you
must make sure of when brooding day old chicks
1) Check the brooder for proper temperature 24 hours prior to the
arrival of chicks
2) Switch on the brooder heating source several hours before the
arrival of the chicks in order to maintain required brooding temperature.
3) Always observe and notice the reaction of the chicks to the
heating source in order to find out if the temperature provided is not too high
or too low.
4) During brooding, one can use a combination of brooding equipment.
For example I use charcoal as a source of heat during the day and
electricity during the night. It all depends on your available resources.
5) You also need to keep the brooder floor warm by putting a layer
of dry wood chippings.
These also help to absorb the chicken droppings thus ensuring that
the brooder is dry at all times.
Never put saw dust in a brooder for chicks. Always put wood
chippings or shavings.
6) You need to add vitamins or liquid paraffin to drinking water.
Vitamins for chicks are important as they help the chicks gain weight faster,
overcome stress due to handling as they are transported from the hatchery to
the brooder.
Liquid paraffin helps in digestion of feed by the chicks and also
helps prevent constipation in chicks too.
7) Keep the brooder temperature within the range of 30 degrees to 35
degrees decreasing at 4 degrees per week for up 3 weeks.
8) After two weeks, the chicks must have begun to acquire the
ability to regulate their own temperature since they have started to have
feathers.
9) Also there must be increased feed intake and general activity.
10) You need to expand the brooder space as the chicks grow to avoid
overcrowding which can lead to death and poor feed intake by some of the chicks
due to inaccessible feeders and drinkers.
This is where
we will be ending our discussion for today.
Do you have any questions or other forms of contributions,
kindly use the comment section below for all your contributions.
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