Read this if you're breeding from caught-up stock

When catching up, condition may not always be top of the agenda- quantity over quality, maybe, so we need to give these birds the best chance of breeding success as possible and support them to produce as many robust poults as possible. There are 3 pieces to this jigsaw puzzle:

• cock & hen bird fertility
• the number of quality, settable eggs
• the chick itself

There are a number of factors which can impact results. Luckily, the right nutrition can influence many of these factors.

Fertility first

Put simply, fertility is about how able the hen bird is to produce eggs, and interact with the cock bird to ensure that these eggs are fertile. Nutrition can influence this, through the provision of key vitamins, trace elements and the inclusion of a red carotenoid which can increase semen production and protect the developing embryo, particularly in the early stages of incubation.