How to Select High-Quality Chicks for Silkie Chicken Farming
Introduction of Day-Old Chicks
Whether day-old chicks are well or poorly selected has a great deal to do with whether poultry production proceeds smoothly. Under equally favorable feeding and management conditions and technical levels, high-quality chicks have a low mortality rate, while poor-quality chicks have a higher mortality rate. Therefore, when purchasing chicks, how to select robust day-old chicks directly relates to the economic benefits of Silkie chicken production.
Purchasing Day-Old Chicks
Due to the influence of congenital factors such as the health, nutrition and genetics of breeding Silkie chickens, as well as acquired factors such as incubation, long-distance transport and prolonged time from hatching, weak chicks, deformed chicks and disabled chicks often appear among newly hatched chicks, and these need to be culled. Therefore, selecting healthy day-old chicks is the primary task for successful brooding. Chick selection should be carried out from the following aspects.
1. Select healthy chicks. Healthy chicks are lively and active, free of deformities and injuries, quick to react, with loud calls and eyes wide open. Those that lie prone and motionless, do not react, have an overly large or overly small abdomen, or have blood scabs or blood lines at the navel are weak chicks.
2. Down. Healthy chicks have full, glossy down that is clean and free of contamination. Chicks whose down is sticky are weak chicks.
3. Feel when held in the hand. When a healthy chick is held in the hand, its down is soft and full, and it struggles; the abdomen feels moderate in size, soft and elastic to the touch.
4. Yolk absorption and navel healing. Healthy chicks have good yolk absorption, a small, soft abdomen, and a well-healed, dry navel covered with down. Weak chicks, however, show a large navel opening, navel infection, an exposed yolk sac, and no down covering.
5. Body weight. Newly hatched chicks have an average body weight of over 35 grams, and chicks of the same breed are uniform in size.