Egg Production Facility

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Egg Production Facility

• Clay Crane

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Why Egg Production?

• Kansas is an agriculture state, weve covered the
  flour production
• Great economic impact on the community
• Actually been through a facility
• Surprising how highly atomized the industry has
  become
• Czech quality..disturbing?

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Changing Industry

• Prior to WWII most egg producing facilities were
  free run with flock sizes less than 400 hens.

• Now the birds are kept in cages which has allowed
  for more atomization and larger flock sizes.
  Some facilities now can house as many as 2.5
  million hens. Genetics play a very large role
  now as hens can be designed to be layers with
  little meat and a high resistance to disease.

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Pullets (chicks)

• Kept in separate houses from the layers
• Extremely tight bio-security to prevent disease
  contamination
• Very rigid with vaccinations
• Manipulating the amount of light received allows
  the maturing of the birds frame, however delays
  sexual maturity
• After 17 weeks they are moved to the laying
  houses, 18th week the pullets become layers

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Layers

• Diet changes- more calcium to promote sexual
  maturity and ensure good shell quality
• NO hormones are used in the U.S.
• Start increasing light 15 minutes/day (17hrs max)
• Tricks them into thinking its spring time
• Start laying eggs after 20-30 weeks
• Overall a facility will have about 80-90
  productivity across the board
• Most facilities do molt to keep costs down, but I
  dont have details on that..
• After 110 weeks the hens are sold for processing

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In the Laying House

• Everything is computer controlled from a command
  center
• Light, temperature, humidity, air circulation,
  belt speeds, feed augers
• Several back up generators to ensure the fans and
  the motors dont stop
• There appear to be endless columns of chickens as
  far as the eye can see

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• Theres 6 hens/cage
• Water and food are easily available
• The cage floor has a 10 deg. slant
• The small conveyers flow to a main conveyer that
  runs perpendicular to all houses

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Egg Preparation

• 1. Pre-wash
• Loosens any materials on the egg
• 2. Two washers spraying hot water at high
  pressure while brushes go over eggs
• 3. Eggs dried under blowers
• 4. Mineral oil applied
• Must be done because the washing removes the
  natural cuticle that prevents bacteria from
  entering the egg

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Egg Processing contd

• 5. Dirt detector
• A set of cameras calibrated to a certain shade of
  color (white)
• Anything else and the egg is redirected on a
  conveyer back to the washers
• 6. Crack detector
• Sonar devise measuring sound vibrations
• Cracks give off a funny vibration
• If cracked, the eggs go to a breaking plant
  where they will be pasteurized and dried and sold
  as ingredients to bakeries and such

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Egg Processing contd

• 7. Weighing
• The moment the egg is weighed, the machine knows
  exactly where the egg is and what packer it
  should go to
• 8. Packers
• 12 packers in total, most of which are for large
  eggs
• The machine drops the proper egg into the proper
  packer
• Then placed in carton, date stamped and packed
  into boxes

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Efficiency

• Have their own mill to make proper mix
• Wastes and recycled
• Sold to farmers as fertilizer

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Sources

• www.aeb.org/eii/production.html
• httpag.ansc.prudue.edu/poultry/publication/commeg
  g/inex.htm
• Ryan A. Meunier and Dr. Mickey A. Latour
• Todd Walters, Complex manager, Cal-Maine Foods,
  INC.