Broiler Day-Old Chick Care: 3 Things Farmers Must Avoid

3 Broiler Day-Old Chick Care Mistakes You Must Avoid

Broiler day-old chick care is harder than raising native chickens. Avoid poor coop management, poor feeding and skipping vaccines to prevent heavy losses.

By Redaksi Article.id

Published August 21, 2018, 2:55 PM WIB 3 min read

Caring for broiler day-old chicks (DOC) is much more complicated than caring for native chickens. A weak immune system makes broiler DOC prone to disease. Like layers, they also stress easily because they struggle to adapt to a new environment. Mistakes in raising broiler DOC are costly, since they can leave the chicks open to disease and end in death. To avoid losses, farmers who want to run a broiler business must steer clear of a few things when caring for DOC. Here are the broiler DOC care mistakes you should not make:

Contents

Poor Coop Management
Poor Feed Management
No Vaccines

Poor Coop Management

The first thing broiler farmers must avoid is poor coop management. The coop is the home of broiler DOC, since they spend almost 24 hours a day inside it. Native chickens are different: they spend their time in a free-range area. Here is what poor coop management looks like, and what farmers should avoid:

Too Damp and Dirty

Poor coop management leaves the DOC coop too damp and dirty. A clean, ideal coop is dry, not humid. High humidity lets germs and bacteria multiply easily inside the coop, which is bad for the chicks' growth because those germs and bacteria make them sick. A dirty coop must also be avoided, and it is usually caused by droppings that pile up and are rarely cleaned. Those droppings push the ammonia level in the coop up. Once that happens, the chickens lose their appetite from breathing in too much ammonia.

Not Ideal

Make sure you have an ideal coop before you start raising DOC. A coop that is not ideal keeps the chicks from growing and developing well. Examples of a non-ideal DOC coop include no heater or brooder, no lamp light, gaps that let wind in, and a coop that is neither safe nor comfortable, so the chicks' safety is not guaranteed. If the coop for raising DOC is not yet ideal, the farmer must make it ideal first.

Poor Feed Management

Another thing broiler farmers must avoid is poor feed management. Besides the coop, feed is one of the factors that decide whether a poultry farm succeeds, so it is important to manage DOC feed well. Poor feed management means giving feed that does not match the growth period, using the wrong portion or measure, feeding at the wrong time, and failing to provide enough water.

No Vaccines

Another wrong way to care for broiler DOC is to skip vaccines. Organic broiler DOC may go without vaccines, but on an ordinary farm vaccines are very important because they protect the chickens from many diseases that cannot be cured. The more chickens die, the more the farmer loses, since these diseases spread very fast. When too many DOC die, fewer chickens are harvested, which means less income for the farmer.

DOC are still vulnerable to disease, so the success of the following periods depends on how the farmer cares for them. A failure in the starter period leads to failure in the two periods after it. That is why farmers must not neglect DOC care. Avoid the broiler DOC care mistakes described above so that a failure in the starter (DOC) period can be prevented.