How to Choose Day-Old Chicks: 6 Signs of Top Quality

Day-old chicks (DOC) determine whether a chicken farming business succeeds. Starting out with poor-quality DOC isn't recommended, because your income won't make up for your expenses. It's no secret that raising chickens for business, especially broilers and layer chickens, comes with high feed costs, so farming with low-quality DOC risks a high death rate due to poor immunity. Only quality DOC have the strong immune systems needed to survive a wide range of deadly diseases. Here are several ways to choose quality DOC:

Active

The first way to choose quality DOC is to pick chicks that move around actively. If a chick doesn't like to dart here and there, that's a sign it isn't good quality. A sluggish chick is also unwell, which is why it finds moving difficult and can't be bothered.

Also read Tips for Producing Quality Kampung Chicken DOC

Loud Chirping

Quality DOC also have a loud voice. Healthy chicks like to chirp back and forth with their flockmates, and the louder the chirping, the healthier they are. If a chick mostly stays quiet with its eyes closed, it's a sign the chick is unwell.

Complete Body Parts

The next way to choose DOC is to pick ones with complete body parts, meaning legs, wings, a beak, eyes and so on. Avoid DOC with lame legs, because lameness can affect their quality and productivity later on your farm. Such chicks can't grow and develop like other normal chickens as they are raised.

Clear Eyes

Quality DOC have clear eyes; you could say the eyes reveal how healthy a chick is. Clear eyes mean the chick has good eyesight. If the eyes look droopy or slightly cloudy, there is a defect in the chick's eyes, so they can't work as they should.

Also read 5 DOC Coop Mistakes Farmers Often Make

Symmetrical Wings

Healthy DOC have symmetrical wings, meaning both wings sit in their proper place. A chick in poor condition, by contrast, will have drooping wings, a sign of a defect, fracture or injury.

Clean

Choose DOC with clean bodies. Check each chick's vent: if droppings are stuck to it, the chick has a disease caused by either a virus or bacteria. If you insist on raising that chick anyway, it can pass the disease on to other healthy chicks.

Normal Weight and Clean Feathers

The last way to choose quality DOC is to pick chicks with a normal weight and clean feathers. A below-standard weight makes it hard for chicks to grow and develop on the farm, especially broiler chickens.

Where to Get Quality DOC

You can get quality DOC from well-known, reputable farms. You can also breed your own, but this isn't recommended for beginners because the failure rate is high. On top of that, you need permits to breed or trade DOC.

Also read How to Care for Layer DOC Properly

Those are the ways to choose top-quality DOC. We hope this information is useful.