Best Ways of Achieving Excellent Broiler Weights.

10 Best Ways of Achieving Excellent Broiler Weights

EVERY broiler farmer’s dream is to achieve very good weights, with low mortality, and raising birds in the shortest period possible. This helps them to get better return on investment (ROI). Let’s go through some of the key points on how to achieve the best from our chicks.

Note: Chick quality matters, and I advise farmers to get good broiler breed from good hatchery.

• Thermoregulation/Brooder Temperature Management

A day old chick cannot regulate its own body temperature. Therefore we need to create a favourable warm environment for the chicks.

Start warming the brooder room 5 to 10 hours before chicks arrive. If you are brooding in a new building, it’s better to warm the house at least for 24 hours before chicks’ arrival. A chick on a cold floor will refrain to eat and be inactive. The most critical period of your birds is the first five days. Gradually within 2 weeks, the chick becomes more capable to regulate its body temperature. The temperature at chick level should run from 31 to 33°C and gradually stabilize at 21°C at 28 days. Keeping chicks under high temperature will lead to energy loss and poor growth.

In general, smaller chicks need a higher brooding temperature than bigger ones. A simple and good way to check how your chick is feeling is to hold its legs against your cheek. If you feel they are cold you should raise the house temperature. Or, enter the brooder room barefoot, so as they step on your feet you can easily feel if they are warm or cold!

Correct temperature management will assure high weight gain, lower FCR, lower cull rate, lower mortality and practically reduce bird growing costs.

• Monitoring

Check your chicks after 24 hours to see if they have been properly accommodated. Do a crop fill test on the chicks to see if they have got access to feed and water! Randomly select 100 chicks. 95% of the chicks should have full crops with a mixture of feed and water. If this goal is not reached, go through a check list and see if something is wrong, for example check for feed quantity in feeders and on the floor or on the brooder paper (actually it’s always good to provide plastic trays for feeds in the first week!), water quality and accessibility, water temperature, brooder temperature, feed quality (pellet size), number of birds placed in the brooder, hatchery problems, can all contribute to this feature.

• 7th Day Weight Gain

7-day old chick weights are an excellent way to see how well did they start. Chicks should quadruple their day old weight within the first 7 days. Each one gram of weight gain at 7 days will yield additional 6 grams at 35 days old!

• 7th Day Mortality

This feature is also important to record. Mortality of up to 0.5% in 7 days is considered a good result. If results are way above, find out what has gone wrong, because this may lead to poor growth rate!

 This can happen because of poor quality feed, poor quality chicks, high temperatures, poor brooder preparation, poor spacing.

• Ventilation

This is an essentially important issue. The chick house has to be sealed from any draft wind at chick level. This is especially applicable in the first 14 days.

Never compromise ventilation in order to keep the correct temperature. Use minimum ventilation fans to keep the oxygen levels at the correct level. Or, as you create the brooder, you can leave some spaces for air exchange. Cutting off the air totally may lead to suffocation and death.

If you are using fans, the minimum ventilation should run on 5 minute cycles, allowing ventilation to work 20% of this cycle. That is 1 minute of fan ventilation and 4 minutes of no ventilation continuously.

 Avoid using smoky charcoal in the brooder! The carbon monoxide produced from the poor quality charcoal is poisonous and can cause death.

• Feed

Use a high-quality pre starter and starter feed, the feed has to be distributed on paper sheets aside the drinkers. Feed space using paper and plastic trays for the first week has to occupy 50% of the floor space.

The first feed application on paper should be 50g/chick. Thereafter, topping up of feed on the paper and a gradual move to the feeders.

Farmers who use pellets in day old chicks get better weights than those who use mash!

• Drinking Water

Drinking water should be from a tested well. Water with foul odour or wrong pH, will not be consumed by the birds. Ideal pH is from 5.5 – 7.5.

Ideal water temperature range is 10 to 14°C, though birds will consume water in a wider range of temperature. Do not supply water above 30°C to the birds, it will not be consumed appropriately.

• Stocking Density

Stocking density should run around 25kg/square metre by slaughter time. It is preferable not to exceed the above density.

This means, 10 to 12 mature broiler birds per square metre.

• Vaccination

In order to protect your flock from pathogens, a good vaccine supplier, and a good vaccination application plan should be adapted. The vaccine should be stored and shipped at the correct temperature, applied when the temperatures are cool, and the right routes of vaccination should be used!

It is preferable to apply vaccines in the water early in the morning, to avoid hot temperatures during the day, and utilize the high water consumption in morning. Deny birds from water for 3 hours to create enough thirst, in order for the vaccine to be utilized in 1 to 2 hours.

Water should be clean from antibiotics, chlorine and disinfectant. Treat the water with a stabilizer or use skim milk to neutralize any chlorine residues.

• Biosecurity

Disease control is one of the main challenges of broiler producers. Strict measures to reduce disease load should be implemented in the farm. Surround the farm with a fence to stop unwanted visitors. Clean and disinfect the houses between depletion and introduction of new flock. Establish and perform a vermin control plan. Mice and Rats are known for Salmonella and other serious diseases. Make sure that farm staff has full change of clothes when going into the farm. Many viral and bacterial diseases can remain in clothing and shoes, and so if not changed before entering the farm may introduce disease into the broiler farm.

Farmer Washing in a Footbath

Use shoe dips with disinfectant, dip before entering every poultry house. Apply vaccines correctly for utmost efficiency. Incorrect application can reduce vaccine effectiveness and harm flock health.

Proper dead bird disposal

Use an efficient incineration facility to dispose of dead birds. Dead birds can attract vermin, wild birds, dogs, and cats, therefore introduce viruses and Bacteria in the farm.

Treat invading insects in the farm. Insects have been known as carriers of Salmonella and various viruses with a great potential to introduce disease in the farm.

We wish you to achieve excellent results and hope these simple tips are of assistance