The feeding of chicks after hatching has a great effect on the performance at the end of the breeding period. In other word, feeding and breeding a chicken is an accompanied by proper nutrition and suitable management cause uniform flock in terms of weight and also its performance will be optimized in terms of feed conversion ration and fatality rate. So, to succeed in manage this, principles of nutrition and management, especially in the first week of breeding, have great effect on breeding chicks and broilers.

Chick starter is formulated from a selection of the following ingredients: wheat, triticale, barley, oats, pea, beans, soybean, canola and products derived from these ingredients. Also, starter feed is a protein dense variety of chicken feed designed to meet the dietary requirements of baby chicks.

The importance of basic nutrition:

Chicks hatch with large yolk sac that make up about 20% of their total weight. Yolk sac contains a lot of fat and protein. These nutrients provide 50% of energy and 43% of protein that are needed for chicks. content of yolk sac is severely depleted, it often absorb until third day completely. 80% of fat in yolk sac is consumed at the end of the first day of hatching and the amount of triglyceride in the yolk sac at the time of hatching is less than one gram. If triglyceride is a primary source of energy, so one gram of triglyceride with 95% efficiency can only provide 8-9 kcal of metabolic energy. however, the chicks’ needs are much more than this energy. The triglyceride in the yolk sac as the only source of energy is not enough. As a result, access to food after chick hatch is necessary. Chicks instinctively search for food after hatching, and growth begin 24 hours after eating.
based on researches, chicks that don’t eat food for 48 hours, lost 8/7% of their weight and weight of small intestine reduce (about 80%) and fats and proteins in these chicks reduce more than others; But the weight of chicks that had access to water and food is 500 g more. As we said before, contents of yolk sac don’t can provide energy for chicks.

According to researches, if ration only contain carbohydrates and it don’t have enough protein, so tissue growth failure would occur at birth. So, using corn flour or corn starch is not recommended and we suggested use of starter to achieve proper and desirable growth. In other experiment, the use of diets rich in carbohydrate and its effect on the function and performance of broilers were evaluated. Foods that high in carbohydrates are an important part of healthy diet. Carbohydrates provide the body with glucose, which is converted to energy used to support bodily functions and physical activity. Also based on researches, protein deficiency in early growth cause tissue hyperplasia, the use of propionate reduces the losses (fatality) during the whole growth period. Propionate and standard starter consumption increase the weight, because propionic acid in poultry is mediator glucose renewal in gastrointestinal tract that is rapidly and completely absorbed.

Today’s modern broiler achieves a dramatic growth rate and it expected to increase its body weight by nearly four times in the first seven days post-hatch body weight at seven days of age is commonly accepted as an indictor of final body weight.

Using highly digestible feed ingredients is likely to stimulate gut development and increase nutrient absorption rate, and will condition the chick for the arrival of subsequent diets. This diet can also be designed with characteristics that promote early feed intake, for example, using colorants and a palatable feed form; pellet and crumbled feed has also been shown to improve gut development.

Follow these guidelines to keep your birds healthy: first choose the right chickens, put clean water in the right containers, a safe enclosure because they should have a safe place to sleep at night, a regular source of food, their diets should have calcium and other minerals, hygienic surrounding, vaccinate and prevent disease, and also you should check the chickens daily.