The eggs come from the breeder farm on a truck, already loaded onto these racks
Then they sit in the "cooler" (65 degrees) for 1-7 days until they are scheduled to go in the incubator which looks like this
once in the incubators, they have 12 hours of "pre-heat" where the temperature is gradually raised from the 65 deg to 103 or 105 or something high like that. Then that temp is gradually dropped as the embryos get bigger, until it's about 98 deg around day 17.
The at day 17 the eggs are moved from the incubators to the "hatchers". The chicks are transferred from the turner racks to flat trays, awaiting hatching (at day 21). Here is a video of the chicks the day after they hatched, still in teh "hatcher" waiting to go to the processing room.
After the chicks have been hatched for one day and are dry, they are brought to the separator room where a machine dumps them on to these slats that let the chicks fall through but catch most of the eggs and crap.
After being separated, the chicks travel on a conveyor belt to the next door room. They go around in a circle while the workers determine if they are male or female by the length of their wing feathers. They throw them into a female or male chute. The females (inner, lower conveyor after sexing) go onto the vaccinators (next movie). The males are in the outer, lower chute and fall via a trapped door into a macerator. A macerator is like a high powered blender. literally. the male chicks of the layer strain get macerated in this blender. it sounds horrible, and isn't the best, but the reports i've read say the chicks die in 0.3 seconds....i don't know, there isn't another alternative for the industry though.
then the chicks continued on the conveyor belt to the vaccinators...they are giving a vaccine under the skin via an automated machine:
After that, the chicks are loaded into stackable trays (100 each) and put in the holding room (heated) until the truck comes to ship them to farms.
So that's the hatchery. I guess i should be proud of myself for only shooting my mouth once.
5 comments:
wow. wow, i had no idea about "the macerator." i'm kind of speechless.
Its one thing to hear a description, but another to watch the chicks drop into a chute where they will die immediately thereafter. Kinda makes me sick to my stomach.
that's why i'm glad i was able to get some video--you're right.
I always heard about that macerator thing but I wasn't sure how true it was. I'd heard about it from PETA and stuff and I "believed" it but I sort of hoped it was becoming obsolete. I fucking hate people and this shit makes me insane. How on earth are you dealing so well with all this. This makes me want to give up all eggs except for those I KNOW comes from ..I dunno, Suma's chickens or something.
this rotation is incredibly emotionally taxing for me. and i'm discovering that everything i've ever read about the poultry industry is true--nto much exaggeration.
The funny thing is--the macerator kills the chicks in 0.3sec---faster than any other humane euthanasia method we have--so essentially, i'd rather be a male chick getting macerated than spend my life as a layer hen.
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