How to have quality day old chicks —Expert

ACTIVE involvement of stakeholders and sticking to best standard practices have been said to be the key to a successful production of quality day old chicks.

An animal scientist, Abioye Sulaimon Adewole, stated this while speaking on the topic: Sustainability and Assessment of Day Old Chicks From The Hatchery during a seminar organised by the Day Old Chick Merchants Association of Nigeria, Oluyole branch, an event which held at the E99 Events Centre, Oluyole Estate, Ibadan.

Adewole noted that:”Assessment of quality day old chicks involves all the stakeholders which are: the breeder operators, the hatchery operators, the transporters, the DOC merchants and finally the farmers.

“All these people need to work within the limit of the acceptable practices and standards for us to have good results. For example, if hatchery produces quality chicks and somebody somewhere along the line messes up the product, the farmer will not get the desired result. That is why as stakeholders, all of us need to come together and ensure that all the best practices are adhered to at all time”.

He further stated that stakeholders must be enlightened about what it takes to produce quality chicks and operate within that realm. “For instance, what concerns me most as an hatchery opertor is to ensure that I work within the acceptable parameters that gives us good result and moreso to be security conscious about the operation.

“If my environment is dirty, a lot of organisms are build up then the product will be affected. So that is what concerns me as an hatchery operator. Concerning transportation also, there are accepatble temperature range that must be complied with for chicks to survive. But if such condition is not met, the quality of the chicks will be affected. So that is why we keep saying that it does not end with the production, it goes along also to other handlers”.

Adewole, however suggested that stakeholders must come together to educate transporters about the condtions they have to meet in order to ensure the safety of day old chicks before getting to the final destination.

Chairman, Day Old Chick Merchants Association of Nigeria, Oluyole branch, Alhaji Oyetunde Asimiyu, while speaking with the Nigerian Tribune said the seminar was put together to broaden the knowledge of members on the cruxes that will orchestrate the process of having quality day old chicks.