- ✓Read how the chicks spread out to adjust the heat without a sophisticated thermometer
- ✓Check that the chicks are drinking and eating: the crop check
- ✓Organise the night watch and the first records
Reading how they spread out: the living thermometer
The thermometer gives a figure; the chicks give the truth. Look at them one hour after settling them in, then every two hours during the first night:
| What you see | What it means | What you do |
|---|---|---|
| Chicks huddled in a ball under the heat, cheeping loudly | They are cold | Lower the brooder or increase the heat, close the curtains, get rid of draughts |
| Chicks pressed against the edges of the brooder guard, far from the heat, beaks open, wings spread | They are too hot | Raise the brooder or lower the heat, ventilate |
| Chicks all on one side | A draught is coming from the other side | Find and close off the source of the draught |
| Chicks spread out everywhere, moving, drinking, eating, cheeping softly | All is well | Change nothing, record the time and the temperature |
Temperature benchmark at chick height, under the edge of the brooder: 32 to 34 °C for the first three days, then you lower it by about 2 to 3 °C per week, to reach around 26 to 28 °C at three weeks, depending on the season. In the hot season, it is often the night that causes problems; during the harmattan, the cool nights and the dust call for double vigilance.
The crop check: proof that it is working
The crop is the soft pouch at the base of the neck, where feed and water arrive first. Gently pick up about twenty chicks at random, from several places, and feel the crop:
- Crop full and soft: the chick has drunk and eaten. Perfect.
- Crop full and hard: it has eaten but not drunk enough. Move the drinkers closer, check the water temperature.
- Crop empty: it has found neither the water nor the feed. Check the lighting, the number of trays, the height of the drinkers, the heat.
Target: at least 8 chicks out of 10 with a full, soft crop at 8 hours, and more than 9 out of 10 at 24 hours. If you are below that, the start is going wrong: act straight away, do not wait until the next day.
Water and feed in the first days
The water is clean, at room temperature, and changed several times a day: in the first days, the chicks put litter in the drinkers. Sugar dissolved in the water (about two tablespoons per litre) in the first hours helps them recover from the journey; vitamins or anti-stress products can be added on the advice of your veterinarian or your supervisor, never at random and never an antibiotic “as a precaution”.
Starter feed (fine crumbs) is served in small, frequent amounts on the trays and the paper, so that it stays fresh and clean. You do not let it pile up: the chicks peck at what is renewed. Around the third or fourth day, you start introducing the feeders.
The night, the records, the weak ones
On the first night, someone sleeps near the poultry house and checks every two hours: temperature, how the chicks are spread, water, gas or power. For the next two nights, one check at midnight and one in the early morning are enough if all is well. A heating failure at 2 in the morning, discovered at 6, costs dozens of chicks suffocated in a pile.
The weak birds (small, not moving, splayed legs) are put in a small separate space, in the warm, with water and feed within reach. Some recover; the others must not stay in the flock. Record them.
On the record sheet, every day: morning and evening temperature, water consumed, feed given out, deaths, weak birds, observations. On day 7, weigh a sample: a white broiler chick that has started well weighs about four times its weight on arrival. This is your flock’s first report card.
When to call?
Call your local veterinarian, or the NEXTEKCI information number (+225 05 44 83 27 79) with photos and video, as soon as: mortality exceeds 1% in one day after the first day, the chicks stay listless despite good heat, droppings are red or very runny in many birds, or the crop stays empty in more than one chick in five at 24 hours. Waiting one more day has never helped.
For the entrepreneur
- ›Insist on a report the next morning: night temperature, full crops at 24 h, deaths. No report = no start under control.
- ›Pay for someone to be present at night for the first three nights: it is the best cost-to-result ratio of the whole flock.
- ›Forbid any antibiotic or treatment without the advice of the veterinarian or the supervisor.
For the technician
- ›Every two hours on the first night: look at how the chicks are spread before reading the thermometer, and correct.
- ›Crop check on 20 chicks at 8 h and at 24 h; record the result.
- ›Change the water and the feed on the trays several times a day; isolate the weak ones; weigh on day 7.
The 3 questions to ask your technician this week
- At 24 hours, how many chicks out of 20 had a full, soft crop?
- What temperature was read last night at chick height, and at what times were the checks made?
- How many deaths and weak birds since arrival, and what is the average weight on day 7?
Key points
- •How the chicks spread out is the real thermometer: huddled = cold, at the edges = hot, on one side = draught.
- •32 to 34 °C at chick height, then −2 to 3 °C per week.
- •Crop check: 8 out of 10 full and soft at 8 h, more than 9 out of 10 at 24 h.
- •Someone present at night for the first nights; water changed; no treatment without advice.
- •On day 7, a white broiler that has started well weighs about four times its weight on arrival.