3 Ways to Get Laying Hen Day-Old Chicks and Care for Them

A laying hen farm, also known as a layer chicken farm, will pay off if it runs smoothly and productively. Not every chicken you raise will be productive at laying eggs, so proper planning is essential. One part of farm planning you need to pay attention to is choosing quality chicks. Quality day-old chicks (DOC) can make your farm a success, because they resist disease better than low-quality chicks, which keeps chick mortality down. Here's how to get quality laying hen DOC and how to care for them:

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How to Get Laying Hen DOC

Before learning how to care for laying hen chicks, it's a good idea to know how to get them. Not every chicken farm produces quality day-old chicks, so you need a few tips to find good stock. Here are the tips for getting laying hen DOC that you should keep in mind:

Recommendations from Friends

To get quality laying hen chicks, you can ask friends who also run a layer farming business. The more connections you have, the better, because you can ask them how to raise chickens properly, including where to get quality day-old chicks.

A Trusted Chicken Farm

To get quality day-old chicks, you can visit a trusted farm in person. Besides raising chickens, many farmers also sell quality DOC, especially large-scale operations. At these farms, you can choose the chicks yourself. Every farm sells DOC at a price per chick with a minimum order, for example one box holding 80 chicks. Unfortunately, the price of DOC sold by farmers sometimes goes up, so buying the chicks alone can be a major expense.

Also read 7 Effective and Efficient Ways to Raise Broiler Chickens

Breed Your Own

To guard against sharp rises in DOC prices, you can breed your own. Beginners should avoid this approach, because it's easy to fail. Experienced farmers, however, can produce their own day-old chicks. If the chicks you produce are good quality, you can use them on your own farm and sell them to others.

Caring for Laying Hen DOC

Now that you know how to get day-old chicks, you need to know how to care for them properly. Here's how to care for laying hen DOC the right way:

1. Provide enough food and water once you've placed the laying hen chicks in the coop. During this period, the chicks need plenty of nutrients to boost their immunity. You also need to show the chicks where the feed and the water are.
2. Place the feeders and drinkers close together so the chicks can reach them easily.
3. Watch how the chicks eat. If any chick hasn't eaten at all, help it by moving the feeder closer, and if needed, you can help it eat from the palm of your hand.
4. Check the feeders and drinkers every day, because diseases and bacteria can spread from dirty feeders.

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That's how to get quality laying hen DOC and how to care for them. We hope this information is useful to you.