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Drying off or dehydrating?
An eggshell membrane sticking tightly around the chick or a very dry membrane is a signal of overheating, eggshell damage, or shock and jolts during transfer (drying out). If transfer is automated, set the machine to a slower rate, and perform maintenance in time. If transfer is manual, draw attention to the need for careful handling.
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Drying off or dehydrating?
If a chick is not offered any feed and water and its body temperature is right, it will lose no more than 1-2 grams per day. If the chick’s temperature is too high, this can increase to 4-5 grams per day! Chicks that hatch too early have a high risk of dehydration. Drying off after hatching is a desirable process but drying out (dehydration) on the first day can lead to increased chick mortality on days 7 and 14, as well as poor broiler performance.
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Chick yield (%) 65
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Chick yield development after hatching
optimal temperature temperature too high Just hatched Time (hours) A dead dehydrated chick. The chick has lost too much Chick yield primarily tells you something about the process after hatching. The moisture, because its body temperature was too high. chick dries off and out, and this process reduces its bodyweight. This becomes visible with 10% moisture loss in the first 24 hours and is fatal when the moisture loss reaches 20%.
Weight loss after 12 hours (%) 0 4 6 8 10
Vent temperature Broiler weight loss after 12 hours, at two different body temperatures. Chicks with a high body temperature lose much more moisture.
Weight loss and chick temperature
41°C/106°F 2 copyright protected 40°C/104°F
Different temperatures in the hatcher basket
If you look at the temperature in the hatcher basket, you see that the dried chicks are already at the right temperature. Three chicks are clearly too cold. They are still wet (which can also be seen by the colour of their down), which causes them to cool down considerably.
