Meconium
LOOK-THINK-ACT
Meconium is the first droppings of a newly hatched chick. You can recognise it by its very dark olive brown to black colour. Meconium in the hatcher basket indicates that the chicks were held in the hatcher for a long time. Try to take a lesson from this for the next cycle. A good climate for chicks to dry off in the hatcher has: CO2 lower than 3,000 ppm, RH 50-55%. Chick temperature is of primary importance here. The optimal temperature is 40.0-40.5°C. If all the hatcher baskets are stained with meconium, you can conclude that the chicks were pulled too late: they were held in the hatcher for much too long. If only some baskets show meconium stains, this signals that the hatch window was too long for one of the following reasons: 1. wide variation in egg storage duration 2. temperature variations during incubation
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What does this photo tell you?
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There appears to be an excessive amount of meconium in the hatcher basket. More meconium on one side of the basket indicates an uncomfortable climate on the other side. The chicks have huddled together, because the other side was too hot or cold. At first glance, you see that a basket of chicks could have been pulled earlier: the eggshells are stained with meconium. If this is only the case for a couple of baskets, the hatch window was too long. If you see this in all the baskets, the chicks were pulled too late.
Meconium score
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Early feeding Providing feed and water in the hatcher basket leads to more droppings. And the chicks are sometimes left in the hatcher baskets longer because they have access to feed and water, which enhances this effect. So, it is difficult to define an accurate meconium score when you provide feed and water.
Meconium on brown eggs
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If you regularly assess the amount of meconium on the eggshells, you can link the results to the incubation process (hatch window length and pull time). If the chicks are held in the hatcher basket too long, there will be more eggshells stained with meconium. Are all the eggshells very clean? If so, this can indicate a too short incubation time (= pulling too early). Then the chicks will all still be wet. Some first droppings are a good sign.
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Meconium on white eggs
Left: clean eggs after hatching. Right: too many eggs stained with meconium.
10. C h i c k q u a l i t y
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