“Temperature training” during the last days of incubation: a new method to improve poultry performance

Incubation climate can significantly influence hatchability, chick quality, and later performance in poultry. One of the most important factors is the incubation temperature (Decuypere and Michels, 1992). Changes of only 1°C from the optimum have a major impact, for instance, on hatching results in turkeys (French, 1994), but the strength of this influence depends on the time frame used and the duration of changes in incubation temperature during embryogenesis (French, 2000). Further, during ‘critical periods’ of early development incubation climate may cause life-long modifications in body functions (Tzschentke and Plagemann, 2006).