Influencing hatching results – hatchability and viability of poultry offspring

Already at the beginning of winter, it is high time to think about creating optimal conditions to achieve the best possible results in poultry hatching.

Factors influencing hatchability and chick viability

Hatchability and the viability of newly hatched chicks can be influenced by a number of factors:

• the quality of breeding animals, their genetic unrelatedness, and the timely formation of breeding pairs or flocks,
• the method of rearing young stock (note: rearing is not fattening), preparation of breeding birds for the reproductive period starting from the moulting period, and their overall condition,
• the suitability of housing conditions for breeding poultry and the lighting programme,
• care of hatching eggs, the hatching method, reliability of the hatchery, and the course of incubation,
• feeding and nutrition of the breeding flock.

The impact of nutrition on hatching success

The biological quality of hatching eggs, hatching success, and the viability of newly hatched chicks and other offspring are fundamentally influenced by the feeding and nutrition of the breeding flock — consistently and without fluctuations over the long term. It is important to remember that even meeting the requirements for high egg production may not be sufficient for good hatchability, and even higher standards must be met to achieve good viability of the hatched chicks. Maternal nutrition affects the life of the offspring for at least one week after hatching and may also influence their immunity.

Feeding standards take into account the optimal requirements of breeding poultry in dozens of parameters — such as energy, protein, amino acids, vitamins, fatty acids, and minerals. Not only the absolute levels of individual nutrients are important; their mutual ratios are equally crucial. In small-scale farms, focus is often placed on the absolute supply of individual nutrients. However, excessive levels (even of high-quality proteins or vitamins) can negatively affect reproductive performance. Improvisation in feeding breeding poultry can therefore have highly undesirable effects, sometimes bordering on toxicity — particularly in the case of protein or vitamin oversupply.

The key requirements for individual nutrients are precisely specified and available in numerous professional publications. Feed manufacturers work with the latest global scientific knowledge (which is vast in scope), making it advisable to rely on the quality of products for breeding poultry supplied by your feed provider.