The worst place to save

The starter bag is empty, and the flock is seven days old. You hesitate to buy another one.

By the kilo, it's the most expensive bag of the flock. So you think that three days less won’t change anything.

I tell you the opposite. It's the worst place in the entire flock to save.

Take a chicken sold at one kilo eight. The starter accounts for only about twelve percent of everything it has eaten.

Growth takes thirty-six, finishing fifty-two. More than half is lost by the end.

And it is in this large volume that a failed start pays off. In kilos of feed, and in days of rearing.

According to the breeder, a chick eats less than three hundred grams during its first ten days. By five weeks, it consumes one hundred and eighty per day.

Two days of delay at the end, and it has eaten more than during its entire starter phase.

Why does a trimmed starter cause a loss of days? Because it builds the skeleton and the digestive tract.

The bones that will carry it to sale are made here. And the intestine that will digest all the finishing as well.

At this age, it transforms its feed better than ever. Less than a kilo of feed gives it a kilo of weight.

After that, it always needs more. At six weeks, more than one and a half kilos for the same kilo.

Trimming the starter means trimming the best transformed kilo of your entire flock.

And what is lacking at the start cannot be made up for on its own. Another breeder gives a benchmark that makes you think.

Every gram gained at seven days is worth six to seven at thirty-five days.

Ten grams lost at the start means it will be missing sixty to seventy at sale. Days of finishing to make them up.

So I advise you one thing. Give the starter for at least ten days, as the breed guide requests.

Weigh at ten days. At this age, the breed aims for three hundred and thirty grams. Lighter, it keeps its starter until fourteen days.

For one thousand chicks, ten days of starter make about three hundred kilos. About a dozen bags of twenty-five.

Less than that in your store, and the starter will stop before the tenth day.

The starter is the smallest pile of bags in the flock. But it determines the size of all the others.

And at your place, how many days does the starter last? And how many bags for one thousand chicks?

Send these two answers on WhatsApp, to 05 44 83 27 79. In exchange, our flock record book is offered to you.

Your day-old chicks can be ordered at 07 07 72 78 67. Subscribe. We will then discuss the home feed.

Every chick we sell is born in Agnibilékrou. With Nextekci, every customer is a satisfied poultry farmer.