Young chicks grow fast; one day they’re tiny balls of yellow fluff and the next they’re gangly, awkward-looking creatures midway between chickdom and adulthood. For poultry, the brooding period runs from day-old up to eight weeks of age, and is a critical time in a bird’s development, one that can have a significant impact on a farmer’s bottom line.
At first glance, brooding chicks doesn’t seem like rocket science; they need to be kept warm, dry and provided with ample food and water. Unfortunately, what sounds like an easy task can become a balancing act involving constant monitoring, adjustments and know-how. For those farmers who put that extra time and effort into the brooding period they will be rewarded with happy, healthy and profitable birds.
Al Dam, Provincial Poultry Specialist from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), explained that modern farmers are looking more and more at maximizing whatever potential they can find, and that means paying close attention to each stage of development, starting with brooding. “We’ve taken this whole agricultural thing down to a minute science,” Dam said, “It’s all about the details right now with birds.”
Maximize your flock’s potential by recognizing and addressing brooding issues before they become brooding nightmares. Remember that mistakes made in brooding management often can’t be made up for later in development, and even a few hours of poor conditions can have a negative impact down the line.
Here’s a rundown of where brooding management can go wrong, and how to stay on track:
Chilled or overheated chicks:
This handy brooder is ideal for a small producer – it holds up to 15 chicks, is easy to wash and disinfect, with no corners where birds can pile up and smother, and comes with a convenient heat lamp hanger. Here you can see this brooder is being kept to the right temperature; chicks are moving around freely instead of huddled together.
This can’t be stressed enough: proper temperature control is the single most important thing you can do to ensure your chicks are healthy. A chick who is cold won’t eat or drink properly, and will be susceptible to illness and disease. If your chicks are panting and standing with their wings spread you know your brooder is too warm; if your chicks are huddled in a corner you know your brooder is too cold.
Here’s a quick temperature test suggest- ed by poultry specialist, Al Dam. Press one of your chick’s feet to your cheek— cold feet mean cold birds.
Using either a heat lamp or chick heater, your brooder should be kept at 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius) for the first week, following which the temperature is reduced by five degrees Fahrenheit every week. Make sure the temperature is in the correct range throughout the brooder by buying a couple of thermometers and placing them in different areas.
Temperature control begins as early as when you pick up your birds from your supplier. Don’t just throw your chicks into a box in the back of your truck and drive away; transporting can be a major source of stress — remember, these chicks just hatched literally the day before, and may already have been in transit for hours before reaching you.
Underfed or dehydrated chicks
If your chicks aren’t growing properly, and appear malnourished or dehydrated, there are a couple of potential culprits. To begin with, make sure you are feeding your chicks a commercial chick starter, mixed exclusively with the nutritional needs of chicks in mind. Make sure your feeder is low enough for your chicks to find easily and there is sufficient room around it for everyone to get their fair share. Your waterer should be similarly accessible and should contain clean water, checked regularly.
See how clean this waterer looks? Only seconds after snapping this picture, this chick defecated directly into the waterer, which is a problem. Chicks need clean water, and waterers tend to be a hotspot for chick illnesses. If you’re using a bell waterer, make the effort to keep it clean of soiled bedding. Make sure your water isn’t too cold, which can stress chicks.
An often-overlooked cause for underfed or dehydrated chicks is the lighting program. If chicks can’t see their food or water, they can’t eat, and if they can’t eat, they can’t grow. Maintaining adequate lighting is a balancing act; ideally you want your chicks to have several hours of darkness each day, but with enough daylight hours to encourage eating and drinking.
A common assumption is that 24 hours of light each day will be to the benefit of your chicks, but periods of darkness can not only give chicks an opportunity to rest, darkness can also help simulate a natural circadian rhythm that will regulate hormone levels and improve a chick’s immune system. For broilers in particular, periods of darkness can be a way of regulating rapid growth by restricting feeding hours. For broiler chicks, a good lighting program is 14 hours of darkness per day from days 7 to 21.
Sick chicks
Chicks who are sick will act and look sick (see sidebar for a list of common illnesses, symptoms and treatments). If your chicks appeared healthy when you picked them up and became sick after the first day, it’s a good bet your brooding management is the culprit.
Proper brooding management — adequate ventilation, ample food, clean water and a warm environment — is your best defence to illness; anything less can cause a weakened immune system and susceptibility to disease. If you keep other birds on your farm, failing to follow proper biosecurity protocols can also introduce illness into a young flock of birds.
Another consideration is bedding — one of the biggest breeding grounds for disease can lie directly beneath your chick’s feet. Bedding that doesn’t absorb moisture can become a place for disease or mould to flourish. The preferred bedding for chicks is shavings, which absorb moisture well, but won’t mat and stick to a chick’s feet like straw.
Moving them out
It’s time to move chicks out of the brooder into a bigger coop when they’re well-feathered, typically at five- to-six weeks of age and when the temperature is in the 65 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius) range. If you are incorporating your chicks into a larger flock of birds, make sure there is sufficient room to prevent chicks from being bullied.
When moving chicks to the big house, try inverting a cardboard box in the coop, with an opening big enough for chicks to enter but not big enough for a full-grown bird. This gives the chicks somewhere to hide from the rest of the flock if they are feeling threatened, but allows them the freedom to get used to the flock dynamics on their own schedule.
The keyword is: stress-free
Ideally, chicks should be living the high life in the brooder — relaxed, comfortable and warm, enjoying their chick lives. With chicks, less stress means healthier birds, and healthy birds means happy farmers.
- Amy Hogue