11.14.2006

By STEPHANIE JORDAN
Staff Writer

HURLOCK, Md. — Earlier this month, loan officers with different branches of MidAtlantic Farm Credit took a tour of the Perdue Hatchery, grower Bill Brown’s farm and Allen’s Processing Plant to get a better idea of what goes on in the industry.
The group started the day at the Perdue Hatchery in Hurlock, Md., where they learned about hatching the chickens from the egg and getting them ready to leave for the farm.
The tour started with the egg room, where all the eggs that come in to the facility wait for their turn to hatch. The eggs are then taken to the incubator room, where they stay for about 18 days, being turned about every hour. The machines that incubate the eggs simulate what a hen does.
From the incubator room, eggs are moved to the hatcher room, where they’ll spend three more days; after about 21 days total in the incubator and hatcher rooms, the chicks are ready to break out of their shells.
After hatching, the chickens are moved from the hatcher room to conveyor belts where they are separated and shipped out to make their way to a farm.
The group then visited Bill and Mary Lou Brown’s farm, which has seven chicken houses, with a placing capacity of 231,200. They contract with Perdue Farms.
The Browns talked to the group about what happens once chickens arrive on the farm, from unloading the chickens to opening different chambers of the house as the chickens get bigger. They also spoke about the technological changes in the industry, and what they must keep an eye on in the house to ensure their chickens are doing well.
Everything from static pressure, the outside temperature, the age of the chickens, heaters and cooling pads, they said, is important to factor into the equation of healthy chickens.
After the group left the Brown farm, it headed to Allen’s Processing Plant to see how the chicken gets from the poultry house to the grocery store.
The group watched chickens being unloaded at the plant and then went through almost every stage of the process on the assembly line, including removing the feathers, cleaning out the innards and packaging.
Karen Smith, with the Dover, Del., branch of MidAtlantic Farm Credit, said she enjoyed the tour, especially since she had never visited a hatchery before. Members of the group said it gave them a new perspective of the process they help start once they give a loan to a grower.
“It’s interesting to learn what they all go through,” Smith said.
A second group from MidAtlantic Farm Credit made the same tour the following day.