The mystery of the birth of a chick. How do chickens hatch? Where do chickens come from?

We all know almost everything about the appearance and development of the human embryo, but not everyone knows about how chickens hatch after the hen has laid an egg. But this is not only an interesting process, but also quite complex. Farmers need to be real specialists in order to bring into the world decent and healthy chicken offspring. It is also necessary to choose the desired method of hatching eggs, and there are several types of them. Therefore, you will learn below how a chick is born.

There are only two ways for chicks to be born and hatch, and that is: an incubator and natural hatching. Although these methods themselves differ significantly from each other. The main thing to remember is that in the natural way of giving birth to offspring, the farmer himself should not take any part.

However, with an artificial one, the success of the process will depend on him and his skills. After the hen incubates her eggs for 21 days, offspring are born with short breaks between each other. And videos and films on this topic will show you what it looks like in reality.

But as for the incubator, everything is much more difficult here, and all because if the machine’s characteristics are incorrectly configured, the chickens may not be born at all. Or you may not turn the eggs in time, but the most common problem is the wrong temperature. Therefore, you should think carefully before resorting to the help of an incubator, otherwise you risk losing all your offspring.

How it all began

Like a human embryo, a chick begins to develop as a separate living organism from the moment the egg is fertilized. The essence of the process is that the egg, after leaving the ovary, enters the oviduct. During this movement, an embryonic disk is formed in the yolk itself. Most often this takes about 22 hours.

During this period, you can see that the embryo looks like two layers of cells. While being worn, the egg will leave the chicken into the outside world with a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius, but due to the temperature difference, the development of the chicken will slow down significantly. It is in order to resume further development that a brood is placed under the chicken so that the primary conditions are recreated.

If we talk about the warm season, then a chicken can hatch about 15 eggs, and in winter no more than 10. And if there are more, the embryo may freeze and not hatch.

The chicken takes all the necessary vitamins and minerals from the yolk. The first blood vessels in the embryo may appear in the first few days. And by the end of the week, his first lower vertebrae even appear. At the same time, upon closer examination of the egg in the light, you can notice that the embryo has grown and is now about 1 cm in length. Most experts note that in the first weeks, the chicken resembles a lizard in development.

After the eighth day, the embryo looks like a small bird. And after that, his appearance does not change much, he only becomes larger and more developed. And already on the last, 21st day of development, the chicken hatches, or rather, it pecks at the surface of the egg and is born. There are many videos on this topic.

How does a chick appear under a hen?

After the egg is fertilized and appears under the chicken, the main process of incubation begins. Many birds do not have such an instinct, but those that do care for and protect their offspring. The nest creates its own climate and its own temperatures. Most often, it is highest on the chest, and decreases closer to the tail. Those special spots that can sometimes be seen on a chicken’s chest are precisely created so that it warms the eggs.

And in order not to overheat or hypothermia the offspring, the chicken independently turns the eggs from side to side several times a day. Experienced farmers advise not to disturb or worry the brood hen in the first days of incubation, because she may become agitated and leave the nest, and then the future chick will die. There are even situations when a chicken does not eat or drink for several days so that her offspring are comfortable and warm.

But in those moments when the bird leaves to eat, the owner should clean the nest, but under no circumstances should you replace damaged eggs with new ones, because they will still be underdeveloped. And if the process occurs in winter or in cold weather, then it is better if you insulate the nest with warm fabrics and hay. Otherwise, neither the chickens nor the hen require any of your participation, as with artificial incubation.

Features of the appearance of a chicken in an incubator

This process is much more complex than a natural one, so it is important to familiarize yourself with all the features in advance in order to avoid tragic mistakes in the future. Before you place your chicks' eggs in the incubator, you need to let it run without them for three to five days. It is at this time that you can adjust the desired temperature.

And just before you put the future offspring in the car, you need to bring them into a warm room. This is necessary to get rid of temperature changes and to avoid deformation of the shell. The eggs are placed with the blunt end facing up, and the temperature is adjusted to around 38 degrees, humidity around 65%.

Over time, these indicators need to be reduced. Remember that you will have to turn the eggs every two hours, but there are incubators that do this themselves. Although it is better if you check this yourself, because in any machine there can be a mechanism failure and the chickens will not be able to hatch.

It is important to constantly monitor air flow and temperature. And if in the first days there should be a minimum amount of air, then closer to hatching, the air exchange in the incubator should be maximum.

And all so that the chicken gets used to breathing on its own. It is also necessary to remember that the temperature should not be either high or too low. After day 10 it should not exceed 38 degrees Celsius, otherwise it will be necessary to apply cooling to 32 degrees.

In the days before the chicks hatch, air humidity should be about 65% and temperatures about 37 degrees. It is then that hatching will be successful and healthy and developed offspring will be born.

The development of eggs in an incubator is a special process that can only be carried out without errors by someone who has some experience. Although no one is immune from failure, and several of your eggs may still not develop to the end or the chicken will die before birth, it is normal to make such errors and next time everything will go better.

The birth of a new life is an incredible and touching moment. How nice it is to watch chicken eggs turn into the cutest yellow lumps. Surely even experienced breeders cannot help but be touched by a newly hatched chicken. Let's live this touching moment together, find out how chickens hatch - videos and photos will help us with this!

Signs of impending hatching

Your babies can be born either traditionally - from a hen, or through an incubator. In any case, it is necessary to control the incubation process, but in an incubator this is naturally done more carefully. To be sure that your eggs will definitely produce a brood, they must be 100% fertilized and of high quality. Let's assume that you laid good eggs, the conditions in the incubator were correct, and how can you understand that the chick will soon be born? The incubation period of a chicken egg is 21 days.

Three days before the chicks' expected birthday, you need to stop turning the eggs in the incubator and monitor them closely. In the egg, which will soon become a chicken, you can hear the characteristic tapping of its beak - this is a small bird asking to be released. Sometimes you can even hear very quiet squeaks; such signs of life begin to appear already on days 17-19. After tapping, there is a turn of pecks - if you see a small hole in the shell, do not rush to “help” the bird get out. The first video showing us the process of hatching a chick, see below.

Sometimes several hours pass from the moment of pecking until the bird is completely hatched. The main thing is to periodically pay attention to such a pecked egg; sometimes the bird still needs help, otherwise the chicken may suffocate and die in its shell.

Hatching process

If your chicks have to hatch in the nest, from under the hen, then she, as a rule, monitors and controls the entire process. However, you shouldn’t trust his bird completely; sometimes you come across careless mothers who can, with their weight, damage the newborn baby. But then you can see an unusually touching video starring a caring mother hen and newborn chicks!

So, the process of hatching chickens goes like this:

First, a small crack appears on the shell, which within a few hours turns into a small hole.
Next, the little chick rotates in the egg and, using a structure it has called an “egg tooth,” splits the shell around its circumference. It should be noted that during incubation the shell becomes thinner and becomes very fragile; as a rule, the chick requires 6 to 12 hours to crack the shell. While the chicken is struggling with the egg shell, clearing its way to freedom, the hen makes specific calling sounds.
It happens that the chick becomes weak ahead of time and cannot continue to fight the shell, in which case either the mother hen or a person comes to his aid. Unfortunately, the mortality rate among chicks that require assistance at the hatching stage is higher than among all others.

Another video about the birth of chicken chicks for your attention next!

Further, shortly before the chick completely emerges from the shell, it absorbs the residual contents of the yolk sac - this is a reserve of energy for the bird for the first hours of life.

The chicken, completely freed from the shell, is exhausted, weak and completely wet. It takes him a couple of hours to dry out, “gather his strength” and appear before us in all his glory - a yellow, squeaking lump!

Video “How chicks are born”

And at the end of our acquaintance with newborn chicks, a video showing the first hours of life of little chicks! It is worth noting that a lot of videos on the Internet are devoted to this topic!

When birds reach sexual maturity, their eggs mature. After the membrane covering them ruptures, they enter the protein part of the oviduct, where the formation of egg white and its membranes occurs, and then into the uterus, where the shell is formed. The duration of egg formation ranges from 23 to 26 hours. Spermatozoa can retain fertilizing ability for a long time (up to 20 days), being in the folds of the mucous membrane of the oviduct. Therefore, one mating with a male is enough for the hen to lay fertilized eggs for a long time.

There is a constant exchange of substances between the embryo, yolk, white and shell. The embryo uses the nutrients of the egg, secretes waste products, breathes, absorbs and releases thermal energy.

At the beginning of incubation, the embryo does not yet have a constant body temperature. It is the same as that of the air surrounding the egg. In the second half of incubation, the embryo develops some features of a warm-blooded animal. The temperature inside the egg becomes higher than the surrounding temperature, reaching 40-42°C, i.e. the bird’s body temperature.

With the development of muscles and the nervous system, the embryo acquires the ability for voluntary movements. They are already noticeable by the tenth day of incubation. The embryo moves its limbs and neck, lowers and raises its head.

By the end of incubation, the chick takes up almost the entire egg. It lies with its tail part at the sharp end of the egg with its legs pressed to its stomach and its head to the air chamber.

Its neck is bent so that its head is covered by its right wing, and only its beak protrudes from under it. By this time, the protein and amniotic fluid have been completely absorbed, and the allantoic fluid has evaporated. The yolk, which has already become thick, is drawn into the abdominal cavity of the chicken along with the yolk sac.

The intensity of respiration increases with the age of the embryo. If in two days of incubation a chicken embryo absorbs about 4 cm3 of oxygen, then on the fifth - 16, on the tenth - 70, on the fourteenth - 270, on the nineteenth - 536 cm3. In total, each chicken egg uses about 4 liters of oxygen and releases 3 liters of carbon dioxide during incubation. After birth, a male chick breathes 18 to 21 times per minute, a female chick 31 to 37 times, provided they are not under stress.

After hatching, the chicks lie for a long time resting, as they spend a lot of energy breaking the shell.
The body temperature of young animals at this age depends on its level in the environment. In a day-old chick, heat transfer is higher than heat production. Chicks are very sensitive to drafts, as they create a cooling effect and can cause hypothermia. The complete formation of thermoregulatory mechanisms in young animals depends on the final formation of juvenile plumage, which is completed at 60-90 days of age

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Lyapin Alexey

Research

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Preview:

MUNICIPAL AUTONOMOUS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

GALCHI SECONDARY SCHOOL

Research work on the topic:

“HOW DOES A CHICKEN APPEAR?”

Completed:

Lyapin Alexey

3rd grade student

Supervisor:

primary school teacher

Soldatova Yu.V.

Domodedovo 2012

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………3

Breeds of chickens……………………………………………………………………………….4

Egg breeds of chickens…………………………………………….4
Meat – egg breeds of chickens…………………………………….5
Meat breeds of chickens…………………………………………….5
Decorative breeds of chickens……………………………………..5
Fighting breeds of chickens…………………………………………..5

Chicken coop – Chicken house…………………………………………5
Chicken nutrition……………………………………………………………7
Incubation and hatching of chickens……………………………………..8

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..11

References………………………………………………………..12

Application

Introduction

Amazing transformations occur in living nature. Indeed: isn’t it a miracle how a small seed turns into a huge tree, into a lush bush or into a beautiful flower?

An ordinary chicken egg is also one of the wonders of nature. After all, it can turn into a handsome rooster or a laying hen.Rooster, hen, chick have been part of our lives since childhood. Very different. Someone will be lucky enough to see and observe them in a village yard. But even a city child knows this famous trinity. Only very often does a city child see them as fairy-tale characters, in songs, in poems, on the screen and in the pages of children's books. It is difficult to imagine a peasant farm without poultry.I really wanted to know how a chicken emerges from an egg.

At first glance, a bird's egg is designed very simply. In fact, it is a complex organism. Let us take a close look at this miracle of nature. The egg contains the secret of life, the secret of its fulfillment.

Goal of the work: get acquainted with the natural scientific development cycle of one of the species of poultry, the emergence of a chicken from an egg.

Tasks:

analyze scientific literature on this topic;
learn about chicken breeds;
study the conditions of keeping and caring for chickens;
get acquainted with the process of hatching eggs by a hen;
analyze the results obtained.

I really love animals and birds. It was always interesting for me to watch them. This summer, during the holidays, I went to visit my grandmother in the village. When I came to her, what a surprise I was that she decided to raise chickens. I immediately had a question: What are they for?

Chicken - This is the most common type of poultry. From chicken we get not only meat and eggs, but also feathers and down.

I found it very interesting to watch the chickens. Every morning my grandmother brought me a fresh, still warm egg from the chicken coop for breakfast. And I wondered how little yellow chickens hatch from such an egg.

In my research work I want to show how a chicken hatches from an egg. But first, I will tell you what is necessary for a chick to be born.

Chicken breeds

It is most profitable to raise chickens from different types of poultry, because they produce double products - and what a product! Chicken is lower in calories than other types of poultry. It contains less fat, and this is very important in the diet of a modern person. Anyone who had the opportunity to compare the taste of chicken meat raised in a homestead and in a poultry farm obviously noticed the difference. Chicken meat obtained from birds that roamed freely around the yard has a unique aroma, which cannot be said about industrial products. Among other types of poultry meat, chicken takes one of the first places in protein content, and therefore is especially useful for children.

Domestic chickens are the most common type of poultry. They originated from wild bank chickens, domesticated in India about 5 thousand years ago.

A characteristic feature of Chickens is the skin formations on the head - a comb, earlobes, earrings and spurs on the legs (only on roosters). The color of the plumage is varied, most often white. The beak and metatarsus of most breeds are yellow, less often white-pink, black, etc. The shells of eggs are white or brown in different shades.

According to the direction of productivity, breeds are divided into:

Egg
Meat and eggs
Meat
Decorative
Fighting breeds that have no industrial significance.

Egg breeds of chickens

Chickens of egg breeds are agile, have a small body weight of 1 kg. 700 g. up to 2kg. 200gr. , are capable of producing more than 300 eggs per year. They feed well on walks. The young begin laying eggs at 4 months of age. These include the following breeds: Leghorn, Russian White, etc. (Appendix 1)

Meat and egg breeds of chickens

Chickens of meat and egg breeds are calm, have a body weight of 2 kg. 300 gr. up to 2 kg. 800g., unpretentious to feed, resistant to diseases and good brood hens. They lay up to 200 eggs per year, but their eggs and meat are tastier than those of egg hens. These include the following breeds: Kuchinsky Yubileiny, Moscow black, etc. (Appendix 2)

Meat breeds of chickens

Meat chickens are raised only for meat. They are very calm. Chicks grow quickly, already at 8 weeks, their weight reaches 1 kg. The weight of an adult chicken reaches up to 4 kg, egg production up to 150 eggs per year. These include the following breeds: White Cornish, Brahma, etc. (Appendix 3).

Decorative breed of chickens

This group of chickens includes breeds with an original body position, a horn-shaped crest, crested and dwarf. Of the dwarf chickens, the most common breed is the Altai bantam. (Appendix 4).

Fighting breed of chickens

Fighting chickens one of the most ancient breeds on earth. Among the whole variety of fighting chickens, there are breeds weighing from 500 gram dwarfs to 7 kilogram giants. Fighting chickens have a strong, muscular chest, long, strong legs, a long neck, a powerful head, a solid beak and an aggressive character. These include the following breeds: Azil, Yamato, etc. (Appendix 4).

Chicken coop - Chicken house.

Chicken, although a very unpretentious animal, still requires certain conditions of detention.

These include:

Proper feeding

A walk or spacious chicken coop (since chickens definitely need to move),

Protection from cold, wind and precipitation,

Providing shelter for the night and a place where they will lay eggs.

The construction of a chicken coop as a whole is an individual matter. Its size, location and other characteristics depend on the number of birds, the characteristics of the plot, the budget for its creation, the design ideas of its creator and much more.

A chicken coop must perform several important functions.

Firstly, it must protect the chickens from drafts and precipitation at any time of the year, otherwise the chickens will start to get sick.
Secondly, the chicken coop must be equipped with perches on which the chickens will spend the night, and nests for laying eggs.
Thirdly, the chicken coop must be lit, or have access to the street during daylight hours, since light is vital for chickens.
Fourthly, you need to think about protection from animals that can attack chickens.

The size of the chicken coop depends on the number of chickens that will be in the chicken coop. One chicken needs at least 20 cm of area to roost overnight. This does not take into account the place of feeding and laying eggs. The ideal chicken coop consists of two parts. One part is closed, the chicken coop itself, where the chickens will spend the night and lay eggs. The second part is a pen surrounded by a net where the chickens can get from the chicken coop. Such a pen is convenient because the mesh protects against animals getting inside and from chickens roaming freely around the garden at those moments when you cannot keep an eye on them. At the same time, in such a pen the chickens can bask in the sun and walk, and it is also convenient to feed them here. (Appendix 5).

The height of the chicken coop must be at least a meter.
Of course, the chicken coop must have a door. In addition, it needs to be insulated. Chickens are quite cold-resistant birds, but do not tolerate drafts. Therefore, the main task of insulating a chicken coop is to protect it from wind and precipitation. The floor must be covered with dry straw, hay or sawdust. This is important not only for insulating the floor, but also for softening it. When a chicken flies off the pole, it can injure its feet on the hard floor surface. In addition, bulk materials such as sawdust and hay absorb moisture well and slightly restrain odors.

The poles must be placed from the floor at a height of 35-80 cm. The poles themselves should not be very thin and have a perfectly flat surface. If the perches are too thin, chickens may develop problems with their feet. Elastic tree branches with a natural structure are ideal. The distance between the poles is 35 centimeters.

Low boxes, baskets, etc. can be used as nests for laying eggs. My grandmother used wooden fruit crates. They are not tall and will not rot as quickly as cardboard boxes. They are filled with hay, straw or other material to make the nest warm and soft. As for the pen, it can be made of metal mesh.

Chicken nutrition

Chickens are fed various mashes (wet, warm in winter). Give plenty of warm water. The food used is various types of grain, food waste, boiled crushed potatoes, grated raw root vegetables, and chopped small grass hay. The mash is made crumbly.

In winter, chickens walk less, but meanwhile they need exercise. To do this, a canopy is made over a small area near the chicken coop and covered with film on the sides. Bedding is poured onto the ground, one or two handfuls of grain are thrown into it - and the chickens dig into the bedding all day, raking it with their paws, thereby performing the necessary exercise. To make the chickens more willing to go out for a walk, they tie a birch broom there, which they peck. You can make the chickens move more and tie a broom so that the bird has to jump up to get dry leaves.

In winter, especially at the end of it, it is useful to feed chickens with dried nettle, for which it is harvested from early spring and in the first half of summer. When fed with nettles, the bird's feathers shine, which indicates its good health and well-being. Poultry farmers notice that in this case, chickens lay more eggs.

Approximate daily rations for laying hens can be as follows (for one chicken per day): cereal grain - 50g, legume grain - 10g, mealy feed - 30g, oil cake - 10g, animal feed - 5g, green, succulent food - 50-60 g., hay flour, grass flour 5-10 g., mineral food (chalk, shell shells, eggshells, limestone) - 6 g., table salt - 0.5 g.

Incubation and hatching of chickens by hens

The ancestors of domestic chickens - bank chickens - began to lay eggs with the onset of warm spring days. Under natural conditions, they laid exactly as many eggs as they, due to their size, could cover and warm - 11-17. Sometimes the egg-laying cycle could take place twice a year, no more. It is necessary to not only hatch, but also give the chicks the first lessons in adapting to living conditions in a short summer.

It is interesting that they did not waste their incubation energy on too few eggs - they incubated at least four. This ability has been inherited by some modern hens. The more eggs in the nest, the more willingly the hens transform into hens. Some researchers have found that if there are three eggs in the nest, hens do not show increased interest in incubation. The future black whale quickly rebuilds its body and behavior. She temporarily, during the period of incubation and raising the chicks, stops laying eggs, begins to cluck, changes her external shape, her comb and earrings decrease in size, and her plumage becomes dull. The hen becomes irritable, anxious, and does not allow the rooster to come near her. She has only one concern - to fully enter into the role of a mother. During the manifestation of the maternal instinct, the hen looks for quiet, secluded places, takes a comfortable nest that attracts her attention and begins to inhabit it. Not all breeds of chickens have fully retained the instinct for brooding. Light, egg breeds have mostly lost it. Heavy breeds - meat-egg and meat breeds - show the best incubation activity. Nature has also decreed the length of time it takes to incubate and raise chickens - two months, of which 19-22 days for incubation and 30-35 days for caring for the babies.

There may be minor deviations in incubation. They depend on the size of the egg and the ambient temperature. The smaller the egg mass and the higher the ambient temperature, the less time it takes to incubate. But, if it happens that the eggs have disappeared from the nest, the hen is ready to incubate a new batch at the expense of the length of time to raise the chicks. This factor can be used to incubate the next batch and obtain additional chicks.

My grandmother and I chose hens like this. We took two chickens. We put a box for them in a dark place, put hay in it and seven eggs for each chicken. And they left them for two days. They were monitored periodically. One hen did not get up from the nest for a minute, even to eat, and the other kept running away from the nest. So we only left one hen and seven eggs. Of the three weeks allotted for incubating chicken eggs, the first 5-6 days were the most grueling for the hen.Indeed, for the development of the embryo in the initial stage, the egg must be warmed up almost to its own body temperature, and subjected less to cooling and loss of moisture. The eggs are not evenly heated in all areas under the hen, so the hen constantly changes their places, using her beak and rocking movements of her body.Grandmother said that the hen turns and moves the eggs from 50 times a day at the beginning of incubation to 200 at the end. During this initial period, our black whale even forgot about taking food and water. Grandmother and I understood that the mother hen could not withstand such a grueling marathon for long. We made sure that the feeder was nearby, and sometimes grandma even took the chicken from the nest and placed it near the feeder and waterer. It didn't take her long to do this. She quickly ate and returned to the nest: maternal feelings were in a hurry.But already from the second week, our hen switched to a gentle incubation mode. She is forced to do this by the embryo itself developing in the egg. Its rapid development is accompanied by the active formation of heat.And in order to prevent it from overheating, the hen left the nest, taking short walks. The closer to hatching, the more heat is generated, the longer the walks become - the egg needs more time to cool. Just before the hatch, the hen was even more attentive.Returning to the nest and making sure that the temperature on the egg was still too high, she rose, but did not leave the nest - she stood above the eggs.

By the 19th-20th day, the future chicken becomes a little cramped in the shell, it begins to improve its conditions, breaks the tunica albuginea, penetrates the air chamber of the egg and switches to pulmonary breathing. But air supplies are limited, and the chick needs to go outside.

I was very lucky that at that moment when one chicken decided to hatch from the egg, I was nearby. A faint squeak was heard from the egg. It became interesting to me that the chicken had not yet hatched from the egg, but was already squeaking. And my grandmother explained to me that at that moment the chickcounterclockwise, with its beak it breaks the subshell membrane and breaks the integrity of the shell at the blunt end of the egg. Taking a breath and another of fresh air, the chicken tried to straighten up with its whole body. After some time, the egg shell crackedinto two unequal parts and hatched wet, butsighted and pubescent chicken (Appendix 6). After some time, the other six eggs began to burst one by one. We left them with the hen and she dried them for more than a day. After which the hen left the nest and took the chicks with her, considering that incubation and hatching were over.

Conclusion

So, the chick hatched. From non-existence came into existence. A new life has begun. Truly, everything simple in nature is complex in its implementation. Let's think about this the next time we take a simple chicken egg out of the refrigerator. An egg that contains the secret of life.

Raising chickens is quite a troublesome task. But as a result of his

research I concluded:the development of the embryo occurs in the egg, where it is provided with everything necessary; its development requires certain humidity, heat, oxygen and nutrients. And alsoIn order for a chicken to hatch from an egg, you need hard work and love for our smaller brothers, and of course, great knowledge. If not for my grandmother’s experience, we would hardly have had chickens in our chicken coop. Poultry farming is a labor-intensive, but very interesting and educational activity. I learned a lot of new things for myself.

Bibliography

A short guide to poultry farming. IN AND. Avramenko, 2003
Complete encyclopedia of poultry farming. S.P. Bondarenko, 2002
Homestead farming, No. 3 2008
Poultry farming. I.I. Kocsis, M.G. Petrash, S.B. Smirnov, 2004
Breeding chickens. B.V. Smirnov, S.B. Smirnov, 2003

The word “broiler” evokes memories of delicious, appetizing chicken prepared by a skilled chef according to an individual recipe. Meat is mainly taken both from the market and from the store. But it is best to raise this breed of chickens yourself. Not everyone knows how to distinguish broiler chickens from regular ones. This article will tell you everything about chickens.

What do chickens look like?

Broiler chickens are bred artificially by crossing certain breeds of chickens. You should not think that at home, chicks will have the same qualities as their “parents”. To obtain a meat breed of babies, it is best to buy.

Broilers first appeared in the twentieth century and became popular both in mass production in poultry farms and for growing at home. This breed of chickens grows in a very short time; they are kept for no more than two months. Their further maintenance is unprofitable, since they will no longer grow, but they need to be fed.

Interesting information! The name “broiler” chicken comes from the English word broil and means “to fry over a fire.”

Because chicks grow quickly, they will require feeding at least every two hours. The night break should last six hours. In addition, these chickens can live in cramped conditions, but are demanding of cleanliness and warmth.

Broiler chickens have a visual difference from chickens of other breeds. Since broiler chickens are a meat breed, their body structure is corresponding. Even small chickens look different:

Their body is rectangular in shape and has a wide chest;
The thighs are firm and muscular;
The legs are much shorter than those of other chicks, but at the same time thick, capable of supporting body weight;
The wings, like the legs, are also short.

Important! In the first days, the broiler's head will look out of proportion to the body, but every day this visual feature will disappear, and everything will return to normal.

Adult chickens have white plumage, and babies have yellow plumage. If the seller offers chicks that have a pattern, or are completely red, then you should definitely pass by, since this is a baby of a different breed of chicken. In addition, broiler chicks have small combs and no earrings. This factor is due to the fact that this breed of chickens does not reproduce.

Chickens have yellow plumage

A regular chicken weighs from thirty to thirty-five grams, while a baby broiler weighs all of forty grams. After two weeks it grows from one hundred eighty to two hundred grams. In a month, the chicken will weigh about a kilogram.

How does a chick appear?

Many people would like to know how chickens are born, because even in a dream they cannot imagine the whole process that happens inside a chicken egg. The development of a chick in an egg begins with a blastodisc, which is what is commonly called a small clot of cytoplasm. This is where new life begins to emerge. This clot is located on the surface of the egg yolk. Since the yolk in this place is less dense, the blastodisc is always in the upper position with any rotation of the egg.

Thanks to this, at the time of incubation the embryo warms up better. The entire process of chick evolution begins long before the hen lays an egg. On the yolk, the cytoplasm can be seen as a small bright spot, the diameter of which is no more than two millimeters. The light halo around the spot is called blastoderm.

As soon as favorable conditions arise for the egg (it is warmed up by a hen, or an incubator is used), cell division begins. Already on the second day, two shells appear in the egg:

Amnion;
Allantois.

These shells are temporary organs, thanks to which the chick grows and develops until it is fully formed.

Amnion in a chicken

The chick needs this shell so that the embryo does not dry out and is protected from external influences. During the formation of the chick in the egg, the amnion provides it with the necessary amount of liquid.

Allantois in a chicken

Thanks to this shell, a large number of other functions are performed, namely:

The chick embryo receives the right amount of oxygen;
Waste products are promptly removed from the embryo;
The chick's body receives all the necessary microelements;
Provides calcium to the embryo.

The allantois is a vascular network that surrounds the entire inner surface of the egg and connects to the embryo at the navel.

Egg system

The “breathing” of the embryo depends on the stage of development of the embryo. In the first stages of development, oxygen enters the blastodisc cells independently. After blood vessels appear, oxygen comes along with the blood from the yolk. But as the embryo grows and develops, the oxygen supplied from the yolk is not enough for it.

Therefore, after a week, oxygen begins to flow through the allantois, which, as the embryo grows, spreads throughout the shell.

Nutrition of the embryo

At first, the embryo feeds on the white and yolk of the egg. The embryo is located from the sharp end to the blunt end, with the protein concentrated at the sharp end. But, thanks to the pressure of the allantois, it moves and, with the help of the amnion, enters the embryo’s mouth. After two weeks, all nutrients reach the chicken thanks to the allantois from the shell.

Egg position

For normal development of the embryo, it is necessary that the egg be able to rotate one hundred and eighty degrees. This is only possible if the egg is positioned horizontally in the incubator. If incubation occurs in a vertical position, then the development of the embryo slows down, its weight at hatching is significantly less than during a horizontal position.

Horizontal egg laying

Why do you need to turn the egg?

Rotate the eggs throughout the incubation period. The exceptions are the first day and the last two. On the first day, it is important to warm up the blastodisc well; on the last day, the chick has already assumed the position in which it is preparing to hatch.

Thanks to rotation, the blastoderm will not be able to stick to the shell. In addition, the following actions are performed:

The amnion contracts;
The egg is heated evenly on all sides;
The embryo takes the correct position;
Gas exchange improves;
The allantois closes;
Nutrition improves.

Chicken in an egg

It only takes twenty-one days for a small fluffy chick to emerge from an ordinary egg. Many people are interested in how this process occurs step by step throughout the entire period. It goes like this:

In an ordinary egg, on the first day of incubation, a clot of yolk forms, from where life actually begins.
On the second day, barely noticeable blood vessels begin to appear.
Already on the third day, the first contours of the eyes and paws begin to appear.
The next day this process becomes more noticeable.
After a week, the eyes are fully formed.
Then the beak appears.
After nine days, capsules appear, thanks to which the chick will fledge.
After twelve days, the beak is fully formed.

After this, the embryo begins to develop every hour. After two weeks, the eyelid begins to cover the pupil, and the head and body begin to become covered with down. On the fifteenth day, the eyelid completely covers the eye. After eighteen days, the protein is completely eaten by the embryo. On the nineteenth day, the chick begins to retract the yolk, its neck begins to stretch towards the air chamber. The baby breathes the last drops of oxygen in the egg. On the twentieth day, the yolk has already been retracted, the chicken is alive, opened its eyes and began to peck at the shell. On the twenty-first day, the baby, helpless and completely wet, leaves his “house” and goes outside. Thus, you can see how many stages go through before a chick appears in the egg.

Development of the embryo

During the development of the embryo in the egg, many people ask the question: “How to determine the age of chickens?” To do this you will need a tool called an ovoscope.

Transfer of young animals to a common room

Most novice poultry farmers do not know at what age chickens can be placed with adult chickens. It is not recommended to combine chickens that are too young with an adult flock, since the adults will peck the young. Sometimes it happened that adult chickens beat young ones to death. Although there are exceptions when young women and adults get along well and exist side by side peacefully.

Naturally, no one can guess how the birds will behave. For this reason, it is better for young women not to succumb to risk in advance and wait until the due date. In addition, old chickens can restrict young animals from eating and drinking, as they will drive them away from feeders and drinkers.

The only reason why it is undesirable to merge is the possibility of infection of young individuals from old ones with various diseases.

Many poultry farmers practice a method in which birds can visually get used to each other. To do this, they create a walking area, which they block with a net and release old laying hens and young hens on both sides. When chickens see each other every day, they no longer show aggression towards chickens that need to be moved to a common room.

The only reason why it is undesirable to merge is the possibility of infection of young individuals from old ones with various diseases. After all, their immunity is still very weak and not adapted to fight diseases. Therefore, some poultry farmers still prefer to keep animals of different weight categories in separate rooms.

Important! It is best to place chicks with older hens at the age of seventeen weeks. This way, the young ones will get used to the new place before they start laying eggs. In addition, they will have time to get used to their “neighbors” and in the future they will feel comfortable, and then rush.

There are several folk secrets, thanks to which the placement of young animals will be possible without problems:

The young ones need to be moved in at night, which will help avoid fights in the coop.
You can dry the chickens using a mitt. First the older ones, then the young ones. This way, both will smell the same. Therefore, there will be no disagreements between individuals.
Before combining two age categories of chickens, you need, first of all, to place a rooster with the young ones for a few days. Later, he will not allow his young girlfriends to be offended.

Secrets of experienced poultry farmers

It's easier to buy chicks than to incubate eggs. But when buying, you need to know how to do it correctly. This is best done in poultry farms. But even in this case, you need to be careful when purchasing:

It is best to buy chicks in winter. First of all, prices are significantly lower this time of year. But such purchases can be made if you have a warm poultry house.
When making a purchase, you need to carefully examine the chicks. Their down should be clean and fluffy. These signs are the key to the health of the chicks.
The eyes and beak of the chicks should also have a healthy appearance, shine and no discharge.
The tummy should be soft, but not droopy.
The umbilical cord is clean, without signs of discharge, as is the cloaca.
You need to buy chickens that move actively and peck food from time to time.
If we take the chicks by weight, then they should weigh at least thirty-five grams.

The room in which the chicks grow must be dry and warm. Under no circumstances should drafts be allowed in the poultry house. After purchase, you need the air temperature in the room where the chickens are raised to be at least thirty degrees. Over the course of a month, the temperature is gradually reduced to twenty degrees.

Feeders and drinking bowls for babies should be equipped in such a way that chickens have free access to them. Under no circumstances should you allow feed to get under your feet.

Raising chicks is not at all a difficult matter, but in order for the livestock to grow strong and healthy, you need to follow all the rules and recommendations of experienced specialists. After all, caring for a chicken, like caring for a duckling, must be proper. Only then will the beginning farmer be provided with meat and eggs.

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