Chick quality is the only product a hatchery sells, and it is judged by someone standing in a different building, several hours later, using no agreed unit of measurement. Most disputes between a hatchery and its customers come down to that gap. Closing it is less about arguing better and more about deciding, in advance, what will be counted at the moment the boxes are opened.
Key takeaways
- Score chicks, do not describe them: the Tona and Pasgar systems both rate a sample on a 1 to 10 scale.
- Cloacal temperature on day one normally sits between 40.0 and 40.6 °C and reveals thermal problems no visual check catches.
- Under EU transport rules, chicks may travel without feed or water if the journey stays under 24 hours and ends within 72 hours of hatching.
- Crop fill in the first 24 hours after placement measures the farm’s start, not the hatchery’s work.
What “quality” means when you have to write it down
A day-old chick is called good when it will start well, and that judgement has to be made before there is any evidence of starting. The scoring systems in commercial use exist precisely to make that prediction repeatable between two people.
The Tona score, developed at KU Leuven, rates a set of observations on a scale to 10. The Pasgar score, adapted by Pas Reform as a shorter version for daily use, works by deducting points for defects: reflex, navel closure, legs, beak and residual yolk. Trained observers score consistently with either, and that consistency is the whole value. A sample of 100 chicks scored the same way every week is worth more than a full inspection carried out differently by whoever is available.
Two objective measures usefully sit alongside a score. Chick length and yolk-free body mass separate a chick that is genuinely well developed from one that is merely heavy with unabsorbed yolk, which is a distinction a visual assessment cannot make.
Cloacal temperature: the measurement most operations skip
A chick’s cloacal temperature on the first day normally falls between 40.0 and 40.6 °C. Below that range the chick is losing heat faster than it can produce it; above it, it has been held too warm and is dehydrating. Neither state is visible through a box lid.
The measurement takes a digital thermometer and a few minutes, and it should be sampled from several positions in the stack rather than from the most accessible box, because the temperature gradient inside a loaded trolley is exactly what you are trying to detect. Taken at dispatch and again at placement, it also settles the question of where a thermal problem occurred, which no other single figure does.
What decides quality before the chick exists
Much of what is scored on hatch day was determined weeks earlier. Breeder flock age changes egg size, shell conductance and how well the eggs tolerate storage. Breeder nutrition and health status carry through to the chick as maternal antibody and yolk reserve. Egg handling on the breeder farm, collection frequency, cleanliness and cooling, sets the bacterial load the hatchery then has to work against.
This is why a hatchery cannot correct chick quality from the incubator alone, and why a persistent quality complaint is often a breeder farm question wearing a hatchery uniform. The conditions inside the machines matter enormously, and we have looked separately at how the hatchery environment shapes day-old chick health, but they are the second half of the story rather than the whole of it.
Transport: the rules, and the clock that matters more
Under Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005, day-old chicks may be transported without feed and water provided the journey lasts less than 24 hours and is completed within 72 hours of hatching. That is the legal boundary, and it is wider than the biological one.
EFSA’s more recent welfare assessment recommends that the total time before first access to feed and water, counting hatchery holding, loading, transport and unloading, should not exceed 48 hours. In practice the clock that governs chick performance starts at hatch, not at loading, and holding time inside the hatchery is usually the largest and least visible part of it.
For conditions in transit, EFSA’s recommended range for transported chicks sits around 24 to 26 °C, with roughly 63 to 70 % relative humidity. Ventilation of the load matters as much as the setpoint: chicks generate heat, and a stack that is well conditioned at the edges can be several degrees warmer in the centre.
The receiving farm’s half of the handover
Placement conditions decide how much of the delivered quality survives the first day. Aviagen’s 2025 broiler management guidance puts floor temperature at 28 to 30 °C, house air temperature at around 30 °C for whole-house brooding and 32 °C at the edge of a brooder, with relative humidity of 60 to 70 %. The floor has to reach that temperature before the chicks arrive, not after, because a chick that sits on cold litter loses body heat through its feet faster than any air temperature can compensate.
The verification that follows is crop fill. Sampling chicks by hand in the first hours, and again within 24 hours, tells you whether they have found feed and water. A poor crop fill at eight hours is an equipment and layout problem, drinker height, feed availability, light intensity, and it is a farm finding, not a hatchery one.
| Checked at | What to record | What it settles |
|---|---|---|
| Dispatch, at the hatchery | Score on a sample, cloacal temperature, hold time since pull | The condition of the chicks when they left your control |
| Arrival, before unloading | Cloacal temperature, box mortality, journey duration | Whether the loss happened in transit |
| First 24 hours on farm | Crop fill, floor temperature at placement, water intake | Whether the start was compromised on arrival |
| Day 7 | Weight, uniformity, cumulative mortality | The outcome everything above was trying to predict |
Settling a quality dispute with data instead of opinion
When a customer reports a bad batch, the useful response is not a defence, it is a comparison. If the same scoring sheet and the same temperature reading exist at both ends, the conversation moves in a few minutes from whether the chicks were good to where between the two records the condition changed.
Our own preference, when advising operations that keep having this argument, is to start with the two cheapest measurements: cloacal temperature at dispatch and at arrival, and crop fill at eight hours. Neither needs a capital budget. Together they cover the hatchery, the journey and the placement, which is the entire span in which chick quality is either preserved or lost.
Recurring questions from both sides of the delivery
How large should a scoring sample be?
Large enough to be stable week to week, taken from several boxes and several trolley positions rather than from one convenient stack. The consistency of the sampling method matters more than its size.
Does early feeding change the transport rules?
It can, because transport provisions for day-old chicks are written around birds that have not yet been fed. Early feeding and on-farm hatching systems are used commercially, and the legal classification of the birds should be confirmed with your competent authority before practice changes.
Who is responsible when box mortality is high?
Whoever the records point to. Without cloacal temperature and journey data, the answer defaults to the last party to touch the chicks, which is rarely accurate and always expensive.
When does this become a veterinary matter?
Whenever mortality or defects follow a pattern that physical conditions do not explain, particularly navel and yolk sac lesions, which can indicate contamination upstream. That is a diagnosis for the veterinarian responsible for the site, not an adjustment to a setpoint.
The week after placement
Everything measured at handover is spent in the first seven days, and ambient conditions are what spend it. Brooding temperature management, and the seasonal extremes that disrupt it, decide how much of the delivered quality reaches day 7.
Sources: Council Regulation (EC) No 1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport; EFSA scientific opinion on the welfare of domestic birds transported in containers, 2022; Tona et al. (KU Leuven) chick quality scoring, and the Pasgar score as published by Pas Reform; Aviagen Ross Broiler Management Handbook and Pocket Guide, 2025 edition, for placement temperature and crop fill assessment. Consulted August 2026.
Published previously, fully revised on 8 August 2026. This article is general operational guidance for hatchery and poultry professionals. Reference values should be checked against your own breed guides and equipment, and any health finding referred to the veterinarian responsible for the site. Regulatory references apply to the European Union; confirm the rules in force in your own market.