Beak trimming
A slight trimming of the beak can avoid pecking and injury to females.
Trimming quality will be checked at transfer.
Percentage of cocks
It is recommended to start at 1 day old between 10% and maximum 12% of cocks, with no special
selection until production.
When moved to laying house, cocks must be reduced to a maximum of 10%, excluding immature and
deformed cocks and selecting those within the expected average weight range and with good
balance: the biggest and smallest will then be eliminated. Discard males not showing healthy feet as
well as those over beak-trimmed. The sexing errors (brothers of the parent stock females and the
sisters of the parent stock males) must be eliminated.
Sexual behaviour
Often, toward the end of rearing over-mature males may encircle the females, which will prevent
normal feeding and lead to unevenness. If this behaviour is observed, we recommend putting at least
30% of the males in a separate pen. If the females are still being encircled, take out more males. The
males will be progressively returned, a few each day, well distributed over the building, during the
hours of darkness.
During rearing it is recommended to have a separate pen for placing cocks if they show an aggressive
behaviour.
Comb dubbing
Unless customers instruct us to the contrary, all day-old males are delivered with the comb dubbed, in
order to avoid its being damaged by pecking.
In white breeds the males will be always de-combed to be sure sexing errors can be found and
eliminated.
In countries with hot temperatures, for the brown egg type parent stock, the comb should be left intact
as it helps birds to lose heat. In this case, the pullets must be properly beak-trimmed to avoid all
possible cause of injury of the comb which is a very sensitive organ.
Lighting programme
Chickens are sensitive to changes in the period of illumination, and these will influence the age of
sexual maturity. In addition feed consumption is greatly influenced by the duration of day length.
Lighting programmes have, therefore, different objectives:
- In rearing:
o To promote early development and encourage feed intake and growth
o To control the birds' sexual maturity.
-
During production:
o to encourage growth at start of lay
o to counteract the harmful effects of decreases in natural day length
o to control the liveability through the light intensity management