Brooding is the process of caring for baby chicks until they are able to regulate their own body temperature. It involves providing artificial heat, food, water and maintaining proper temperatures and ventilation. Chicks require temperatures between 90-95°F for the first week, gradually decreasing the temperature each subsequent week. Feeders and waterers should be arranged under the brooder heat source. Curtains may be used to control drafts and humidity should be maintained at 50-60%. Monitoring chick behavior provides clues to ensuring an optimal brooding environment.

1. Chick Brooding

3. BROODING MANAGEMENT OF CHICKS
Poultry Production
Abdisamad Hassan Hussein
M.S in Poultry Sciences
Faculty of Veterinary and Animal Husbandry
Somali National University

4. BROODING MANAGEMENT
LIST OF CONTENTS
Brooding of chicks
Classification of brooding
 Brooder Operation
Receiving of chicks

5. BROODING OF CHICKS
Brooding is the art and science of rearing baby chicks.
 Management of baby chicks till 4 weeks in broilers and around 6-8 wks in
layers is called as brooding.
 The device used for providing artificial heat during brooding is called as
brooder.

6. Why Brood Chicks?
•A newly hatched chick does not develop the thermoregulatory mechanism fully
and takes about two weeks to develop this mechanism and homeostasis.
•Therefore, they cannot maintain the body temperature properly for the first few
weeks of life; and may be subjected to chilling, if not properly taken care of.

7. Types of Brooding
Brooding can be classified into natural and artificial brooding.
o Natural brooding
o Artificial brooding

8. Natural brooding
•
•It is done with the help of broody hens after hatching, up to 3 to 4 weeks
of age.

9. Artificial brooding
In artificial brooding large number of baby chicks are reared in the absence of
broody hen.
Equipments used for brooding are called brooders. Brooder comprises of three
elements:
1. Heating source
2. Reflectors
3. Brooder guard

11. 1.Heat Source
Heating source may be electrical, gases like natural gas,
methane, liquid fuel like kerosene and solid fuel like coal,
wood can be used as a heating material.

12. 2.BROODERS
oObjective of brooding equipment - is to provide a suitable
temperature to chicks from the day-old-stage upto the time they
are able to adapt and regulate their temperature to the ambient
environmental temperature condition.

13. oBrooders provide heat for young birds for the first few weeks of life
during which they are unable to regulate their own body temperature.

15. DIFFERENT TYPES OF BROODERS
• Infra red bulbs
• Gas brooders
• Kerosene stove
• Coal/charcoal stove
• Centralized heating system
• Battery brooders
• Biogas brooders

16. • Infra red bulbs : heated quickly. They are self reflecting in nature and
can provide warmth for 200 to 250 chicks, but it is expensive.
• Gas brooding is now practiced particularly in semi-environmentally
controlled and environmentally controlled houses. These are costly but
can take care of 1500 to 2000 chicks.
• Centralised heating system - environmentally controlled

17. • Battery brooders –Bulbs or heaters with thermostats are used to provide
warmth to chicks in the battery cages.
• Bio-gas brooders – Certain farms use the cage droppings and cow dung to
generate bio-gas; which will be used to provide light and heat to the birds.
• If kerosene stoves or coal stoves are used, a metal vessel with sand is placed
over the stove to dissipate heat properly.

18. Charcoal stove / kerosene stove
Where electricity is not available, ordinary charcoal / kerosene stoves
are used to provide supplementary heat to chicks.
These stoves are covered with plate / pans to dissipate the heat.

19. Gas brooder
Natural gas, methane is connected to heating element which is
hanged 3 to 5 feet above the chick to provide heat.

20. Electrical brooder
It is also thermostatically controlled heating system that spread required
amount of heat uniformly above large area, this avoid crowding of chicks
under brooder directly.
One electrical brooder can be used for 300 to 400 chicks.

21. Infra-red bulbs
It is a self reflecting bulb. One 250 watts IR bulb can provide brooding
for about 150 to 250 chicks.

22. 3.Reflectors
These reflectors are called Hovers.
Flat type hover – These hovers are provided with heating element, heating
mechanism and pilot lamp and in some cases thermometer is also there in order to
record the temperature.
Canopy type hover – These reflectors are in concave shape consisting of ordinary
electrical bulb, thermostat mechanism and in some cases thermometer.

23. Reflectors

24. Brooder guard / chick guard
They are used to prevent chicks from straying too far away from heat supply
until they learn the source of heat.
We have to provide brooder guard with a diameter of 5 feet, height of the
brooder should not exceed 1.5 feet.

25. Chick Guard
 For 1000 chicks, it should be 24 ft long & 12 ft width.
 For this purpose, we can use materials like cardboard sheet, GI sheet, wire
mesh, and mat etc. depending upon the season of brooding.
 During summer season, brooding is done for 5-6 days. In winter season it is
2-3 weeks.

27.  Expand the brooding area gradually
 Overcrowding leads to huddling, dampness of litter, multiplication of disease
causing organism.
 Less space give away to competition, which causes to become weak and die
due to starvation.
 Inadequate space and improper equipment alignment will decrease the bird
performance.

28. BROODER OPERATION
Preparation of shed to receive chicks
 1 or 2 days prior to the arrival of chicks, spread the litter material (paddy
husk, saw dust) about 5 cm thickness.
 Spread old news papers over the litter to avoid eating the litter.
 Arrange chick guards.
 Arrangement of feeders and waterers under brooder.

29.  4 kg of newspaper for 1000 sq. ft. area
 Round brooding is better and more effective than rectangular brooding.
Required number of feeders and waterers are arranged alternate to each other on
the newspaper area.
Care should be taken to avoid placing them crowded at the centre under the
source of heat.

30. Keep feeders open for five hours and also spread some feed on the newspaper
Two linear feeders of 60 cm size and two chick waterers may be used for every
100 chicks.
Automatic feeders and waterers may also be used as per manufacturer’s
specifications

31. Allow free moving space on the sides of waterers and feeders.
Switch on the bulbs 1-2 hours before the arrival of the chicks to keep the
environment warm.
When chicks are delivered, do not allow the delivery van into the farm premises.
Take delivery at the entrance itself.

32. Essentials of Brooder Chick
1. Light
2. Feed
3. Water
4. Temperature
5. Ventilation
6. Relative Humidity

33. 1-Lighting
• 24 hrs. Lighting first 3 days
• Increase the feeding time, increase weight gain, and improve feathering in
broiler.
• For day old broiler chicks, an intensity of 100 lux units at bird’s eye level
• This can be achieved by providing one 100 watt round bulb at 2 ft height from the
floor level for every round brooding.

34. 2-FEED
Feeding
Brooder mash with 22% crude protein and 2700 Kcal/kg of metabolisable
energy has to be prepared and provided.

35. Feeder management
Age group No. of Feeder/1000 Chicks
50
25-30
01 day
02-12 days
13- Marketing
As Libido

37. 3-Watering
Antibiotics and vitamins may be continued for 3-5 days.
 Keep medicated water in the waterers before leaving the chicks into the
brooder arrangement
Good quality, potable medicated water has to be provided in the waterers.
 Look for the health of the chicks at the time of delivery

38. Keep boiled and cooled drinking water ready
Add 8 g of glucose, 0.5-1g of mild antibiotic or antibacterial drug per
litre, electrolytes and vitamin mixture at recommended dosage in
water for the first day.

39. 4-BROODING TEMPERATURE
Before receiving the chick, the heat source should be switched on
Temperature required during the first week is 90-95oF, later reduced by 5oF
every week, to reach a temperature of 75oF
Brooding period is a very sensitive period particularly during the cold
months or rainy seasons.

40. Brooding Temperature
AGE (WEEKS) DEGREE (F) Degree ©
1st 90-95 32-35
2nd 85-90 30-33
3rd 80-85 27-30
4th 75-80 24-27

41. CHICK BEHAVIOR UNDER THE BROODER
 When Temp is less – chicks will try to hurdle near the source of heat under brooder
without movements.
 If temp is too high - chicks will go away from source of heat, near to the guard and remain
there with dull movements. Even may show panting also.
 If birds congregate themselves in masses in brooder space it indicates draftiness of weather.
 If temp is favourable: evenly spread under and around brooder with alert and pleasant
movements.
 Based on chicks position and movement, adjust temperature.

43.  In case of too much temperature, we can reduce the heat by
reducing the power of the bulb or we can raise the heating
element.
 In case of too low temperature, we have to supplement more
heating source or we can further down the heating element.
 In case of chill weather or chill breeze, we can provide curtains
towards the wind direction.

44. 5-Ventilation
Air quality is critical during the brooding period.
Ventilation is required during the brooding period to maintain
temperatures at the targeted level and to allow sufficient air exchange
to prevent the accumulation of harmful gases such as carbon
monoxide, carbon dioxide and ammonia.

45. Curtain Management
• Generally in brooding period the side curtain should be more tightly
sealed to preserve heat.
• This closed environment to the broiler farms may result in reduced air
circulation.
• In such circumstances when you feel uncomfortable open side
curtain and give fresh air.

46. 6-RELATIVE HUMIDITY
Relative humidity = the relationship between the moisture content of
the air and the maximum moisture content at the current air temperature
expressed in percentages.
RH levels in the first three days should be maintained near 70%.
50-60% RH has to be maintained