- ✓Choose a heat source suited to your house and your electricity supply
- ✓Set up the brooder guard, feeders and drinkers in sufficient numbers
- ✓Prepare healthy litter and the right lighting
Heat: the chick cannot warm itself
In its first days, a chick does not regulate its own temperature. It needs about 32 to 34 °C at its height for the first three days, then a little less each week (the programme is detailed in lesson 7 and in level 2). At night, even in Côte d’Ivoire, the temperature drops, and that is when chicks huddle together and suffocate.
- Gas brooder (radiant heater): the reference. Stable, adjustable heat, no power cuts. Always keep a full spare cylinder.
- Electric infrared lamps: simple, but dependent on the power supply. Without a generator or a back-up solution, it is a gamble.
- Charcoal: used on many farms, it works provided it is placed in a closed stove, away from the litter, with a gas outlet: carbon monoxide kills without any smell. Never in an enclosed space.
Whatever the method, you light it the evening before so that the floor and the litter are warm on arrival, not just the air. A thermometer placed at chick height, under the edge of the brooder, is an essential and cheap tool.
The brooder guard: a small world to begin with
The brooder guard (or brooding ring) is a ring of thick cardboard, metal sheet or tarpaulin, 40 to 60 cm high, placed around the heat source. It keeps the chicks close to the heat, the water and the feed, and avoids corners where they would pile up. A ring 2.5 to 3 m in diameter holds 300 to 500 chicks on the first day.
Every day, you widen the guard, then remove it at around 7 to 10 days, when the chicks move about easily throughout the house. The part of the house not used during brooding can be closed off with a tarpaulin to keep the heat in.
Feeders and drinkers: enough of them, and at the right height
| Equipment | During brooding (0 to 10 days) | Afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Feeders | One tray (or an upturned egg tray, or paper) for 80 to 100 chicks | One 10 to 15 kg hanging feeder for 40 to 50 chickens |
| Drinkers | One 4 to 5 litre fount drinker for 80 to 100 chicks | One bell drinker for 80 to 100 chickens, or one nipple drinker for 10 to 12 |
At the start, feed is served on trays and on paper laid on the litter: the chick learns to eat by pecking at what it sees. After three to four days, you introduce the permanent feeders and remove the trays gradually. Feeders and drinkers are raised as the birds grow, the rim at back height: too low, they scratch and waste; too high, the small ones do not eat.
Arrange the equipment alternately, feeder, drinker, feeder, so that no bird has more than two to three metres to go to drink or eat.
Litter: dry, clean, thick
White wood shavings (from joinery, untreated) and rice husks are the best litters. Avoid fine sawdust (dust, ingestion), mouldy straw, and any damp material. Spread 5 to 10 cm deep on a clean, disinfected and then aired floor.
Litter is kept dry: damp litter is cold litter, full of ammonia and coccidia. From the first day, the wet areas around the drinkers are removed and replaced. We devote a whole lesson to litter in level 2.
Lighting
In the first days, the chicks must find the water and the feed: you light 23 hours out of 24 with one hour of darkness, so that they also learn to cope with the dark in case of a power failure. After that, the hours of light decrease according to the type of bird. Light bulbs are enough; what matters is evenly spread light, with no dark corner where the weak ones hide.
The day-before checklist
- House cleaned, disinfected, dried, aired, then closed (curtains lowered).
- Litter 5 to 10 cm deep spread out, dry.
- Brooder guard set up, brooder lit since the day before, thermometer at chick height.
- Drinkers washed and filled with clean water (at room temperature, never ice-cold) two hours before arrival.
- Trays and paper ready, starter feed in stock (at least for the first two weeks).
- Lighting installed, footbath filled, house record sheet opened (date, number expected).
- Useful numbers displayed: local veterinarian, NEXTEKCI information +225 05 44 83 27 79.
For the entrepreneur
- ›Buy equipment for the number of chicks ordered, not “to start with”: shortages are paid for in mortality in the first week.
- ›Pay for a spare gas cylinder or a back-up solution for heat: it is the cheapest insurance on the farm.
- ›Insist on the day-before checklist signed by the technician before confirming the delivery time.
For the technician
- ›Light the heat the evening before; check the temperature at floor level, under the edge of the brooder, not in the air.
- ›Set out trays, paper and drinkers alternately, and raise them every week.
- ›If you use charcoal: closed stove, away from the litter, gases vented, never in an enclosed space.
The 3 questions to ask your technician this week
- At what time was the heat lit, and what temperature do we read under the brooder this morning?
- How many feeders and drinkers are set up for the chicks expected?
- What happens if the gas or the power stops tonight?
Key points
- •32 to 34 °C at chick height in the first days; heat lit the day before; thermometer at floor level.
- •Brooder guard 40 to 60 cm high, 2.5 to 3 m in diameter for 300 to 500 chicks, widened every day.
- •One tray and one fount drinker for 80 to 100 chicks; equipment arranged alternately and raised every week.
- •Litter of wood shavings or rice husks, 5 to 10 cm, always dry.
- •23 hours of light in the first days; charcoal only in a closed, ventilated stove.