How to Select, and Inspect Quality Day Old Chick

One of the most important key success factors in poultry farming is starting off with a quality day old chick.

There are a lot of poultry farms, and hatcheries out there producing day old chicks but only a handful of them can boast of quality day old chick.

Quite a number of poultry farmers have had the bitter experience of buying poor quality day old chicks from poor hatcheries.

This experience can be very frustrating considering the number of resources you have invested in procuring your day old chick.

These include the time, financial resources, and human capacity you put into this. It becomes absolutely necessary to invest your time and resources in sampling out good farms and hatcheries when purchasing your quality day old chick.

This will help you avoid wasting your time in raising unproductive baby chicks. The fact still remains no matter the number of drugs or quality feed you use in raising your chicks.

If the foundation is faulty there won’t be any visible weight gain or growth.

It is a good practice to fully assess your day old chick before placing them on your farm. This will guide you on the right decision to make. When it comes to their feeding, medication, and appropriate brooding temperature and environment.

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In order to achieve this the following actions and steps are to be taken:

For white broilers (meat birds) or brown layers inspect the birds for strange and abnormal colors among the chicks. Any strange colors call for an investigation.
in inspecting quality day old chick visually Sample chicks from each cartoon or tray for uniformity.
Randomly pick a few cartoons of your baby chicks, if they are much. Try to count at least 5% to 10% of the entire chicks in a particular cartoon to ascertain the actual number in it.
When it comes to weight gain and the rate of feed consumption per week it is important you weigh your day old chicks from day one.
This will help you have a comprehensive record of the quantity of feed consumed per each batch of your flock, and the profit margin obtainable.

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Characteristics of A Healthy Quality Day Old Chicks

Upon arrival, a quality baby chick should be active and lively should be able to find water and start pecking at the feed right away.
When you lay a quality day old chick on its back. It should be able to stand up in less than 5 seconds
The eyes of a baby chick should be opened, bright, clean, and shiny, a dull and closed eye is an indication that the chick is unwell.
A quality day old chick should have a closed and clean naval, without any remnants of yolk or eggshells on it.
The beak of a day old chick should be well-formed, any irregular beak that is not well aligned to each other is an indication of a birth deformity and a poor chick.
A very good quality day old chick should have a well-absorbed yolk, soft and smooth belly.
Underneath a baby chick should be dray and shiny, not wet and tacky
Always check out for uniformity in your baby chick, all quality day old chicks should be of the same size and color any deviation up to 25% too light or too heavy calls for concerns.