I've heard that the first 10 days and the last 10 days are the most important for meat birds

[BillW77]

Is this true and if so can someone explain why that is and what they do to make the first and last 10 days ideal.

 

[3riverschick]

I could write a book on this. I've been researching it for over 2 years. I don't have broilers but I figured anything they're doing with broilers will help my dual Heritage Birds.
The modern Broiler has a lifespan of about 42 days. that makes the first 12 days basically 1/4 of their lifespan. they develop extremely rapidly during this 10-12 days.. Temperature needs to be constant. quarters need to be clean. fresh water needs to be always available.
anything you can do to jumpstart their GI tract and thus their immune system as soon as possible after hatch is very important. especially during the first 7 days.
If I was Raising broilers, I would get With Hamlet Protein in Finleyville Ohio USA (see their website). pick up some HP avistart supplement it's been shown in field trials all over the world to jumpstart the development of baby chicks that are broilers.
The Hamlet protein website has a wonderful section called _feed your brain". it explains in plain English all the exciting new research being done with raising broilers and how you can best do it .
I highly recommend it.
I've even called some of these new research companies and found them very willing to talk to me even though I had a very small flock . one company even offered me a free sample of their merchandise which was plenty for my flock when I was ready for it.
Now I'm about the last 10 days this is called the finishing. And usually the birds are finished on Mash. I did find out that if you give them cracked corn during the finishing And you feed them poultry grit at the same time, they will put on more weight than if you just feed them the mash and cracked corn without the poultry Grit.
There are some excellent online articles about finishing broilers at the following web sites. you have to dig around for the articles.
Websites:
Https://hamletprotein.com
Go to this Hamlet website and scroll down to "feed your brain". click on it and scroll down. click on "articles". scroll down the list of Articles. everything you want to know about pre starters for newly hatched broiler chicks and the first 10 to 12 days of chick life is right there in glorious plain English! I know you're going to be as excited as I was to read it.
www.allaboutfeed.com lots of great studies and articles on feeding broilers.
www.poultryworld.net ( this is the website, don't know why it's not working. Use the Net to find it)
Best,
Karen