POULTRY NOTES

HATCHERY MANAGEMENT
A hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial
conditions especially for poultry.
Hatchery recreates right conditions for chicks in eggs to grow,
mature and well hatch on much bigger scale.
 Ther are nine major functions involved in hatchery
management
1. Hatching eggs at farm and storage
2. Egg handling and quality
3. Primary hatchery responsibility
4. Egg storage
5. Incubator (setter and hatcher)
6. Air quality
7. Hatchery quality control
8. Hatchery sanitation
9. Hatchery vaccination
Hatching eggs at farm and storage and Egg handling and quality
hatchability and chick quality can only be achieved when the egg is held under optimum
conditions between laying and setting in the incubator. Remember that a fertile egg contains
many living cells. Once the egg is laid, its hatching potential can at best be maintained, not
improved. If mishandled, hatching potential will quickly deteriorate.
1. Use of floor eggs depresses hatchability. They should be collected and packed separately
from nest eggs, and clearly identified. If they are to be incubated, they should be treated
separately.
2. Prevent hair-line cracks by handling eggs carefully at all times.
3. Place hatching eggs carefully into the setter tray or transport tray, small (pointed) end
downward.
 4. Take care with egg grading. During the early production period check the weight of
borderline sized eggs to select hatching eggs.
5. Store the eggs in a separate room in which the temperature and humidity are controlled.
6. Keep the farm egg handling room clean and tidy. Maintain good vermin control in your
egg room. Refuse to accept dirty egg containers and buggies from the hatchery, and take
care of them while on your premises.
7. Remove and discard eggs unsuitable for hatching. These are:
• Dirty • Cracked • Small (According to Hatchery Policy) • Very large or double yolk • Poor shells
- but any shell color should be acceptable for hatching • Grossly mis-shape.

Egg storage Eggs should be collected from the farms and transported to the hatchery at least twice a
week. There are three storage areas: farm egg room, transport, and hatchery egg room. It is important to
match the conditions in each of these situations as closely as possible to avoid sharp changes in
temperature and humidity, which can lead to condensation (“sweating”) on eggs or eggs being chilled or
overheated. Also, temperature fluctuations must be avoided during transport and storage. The
temperature decrease must be a smooth transition when cooling the eggs from the hen house to the
hatchery egg room, and also a smooth transition when warming the eggs from the hatchery egg room to
the setter machine

The main effects of storing eggs are:

1. Storage prolongs incubation time. On average, one day’s storage adds one hour to incubation
time. This must be taken into account when eggs are set, so fresh and stored eggs should be set
at different times.
2. Hatchability is depressed by prolonged storage. The effect increases with storage time after the
initial six-day period, resulting in losses of 0.5 to 1.5% per day with the percent increasing as
storage extends further.
3. Chick quality will be affected and hence broiler weights can be depressed in chicks from eggs
that have been stored for 14 days or more.

Gas exchange can occur through the pores in the egg shell during storage. Carbon dioxide diffuses out of
the egg, and its concentration declines rapidly during the first 12 hours after the egg is laid. Eggs also
lose water vapor while in storage. This loss of both carbon dioxide and water contributes to the loss in
hatchability and chick quality after storage.

Storage conditions must therefore be designed to minimize these losses. Most eggs are placed in open-
sided cases or farm racks, but some are placed in solid covered cases. Allow covered eggs to cool down
and dry thoroughly before casing to avoid condensation and subsequent mold growth.

Egg Candling:
Conventionally, eggs set are candled twice during incubation, from the fifth day (for eggs with white
shell) to seventh day (brown shell eggs), to remove the infertile and those with dead embryos and from
the fourteenth to the eighteenth day to remove eggs whose embryos died after the first candling.

Candling involves passing light through the egg in a darkened room to reveal the internal contents. At
about the seventh day of incubation, an infertile egg looks clear, except for a floating shadow, which is
the yolk. A fertile egg on the other hand shows a small, dark spot representing the developing embryo,
with a mass of little blood vessels radiating in all directions, if the embryo is living. These (the embryo
and the mass of blood vessels) give a spider-like appearance. If the embryo is dead, the blood settles
away from the embryo toward the edge of the yolk forming an irregular circle of blood known as blood
ring. Eggs with living embryos are dark and well filled up on the eighteenth day, showing a clear, distinct
line between the air cell and developing embryo. Those with dead germs on the eighteenth day show
only partial development and there is no clear line of demarcation between the air cell and the rest of
the egg content. Figure 6 shows the inner contents of eggs after 9 days of incubation.

NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION

There are two types of incubation – Natural and Artificial which are discussed in detail below: 1.3.1
Natural Brooding or incubation Heat transfer from the body of the hen to the egg is very difficult
to measure. Most birds develop “brood patch”, a seasonal bare (uncovered) patch of skin, on part of the
thorax and abdomen through which it directly transfers heat to the eggs. In addition to loss of feathers,
there will be increase in size and numbers of blood vessels in the brood patch. The hen can adjust to the
rate of heat transfer by standing or leaving the egg, but also by closeness with which the bird applies its
patch to the egg. In addition, the hen also responds to variations in the temperature of the egg,
increasing its heat production whenever there is cooling of the egg. Brood patch temperature varies in
different avian species from 34.9°C to 42.4°C so that the brood patch temperature is always 1.1 to 5.5°C
warmer than the egg temperature in different species (Tazawa and Whittow, 2000). The hen herself
incubates the eggs by keeping the brood-patch on the top of the eggs. (Fig. 1.7). Most of the times, the
eggs will be in horizontal position on the floor. The temperature at the top of the eggs will always be
higher (37.2 to 37.8°C) because it is in contact with the brood- patch; the lower side of the egg will be
cooler (32.6°C) and the centre of the egg will be in between (35°C). At the beginning, top of the yolk
containing embryo is towards the brood-patch and it rotates when egg is rotated by the hen to keep
embryo near the brood-patch. Therefore, e than before. Simultaneously, embryo also produces heat and
hence, in the later stage of incubation, centre and bottom of eggs also become as warm as the portion in
contact with the brood-patch. Hence, the hens leave the eggs for cooling during later stages. With
commercialization of poultry industry, natural brooding has been replaced by artificial methods of
incubating and hatching eggs. However, under village and backyard rearing, even now, natural brooding
is being practiced.

Artificial Incubation is occurred through a device called incubator Number of days required for an
egg to hatch is called “Incubation period” and it differs between species. Incubation period (Table 1.1) of
most common species of poultry is given below: Incubation Period of Different Avian Species are chicken
21 Duck, Guinea Fowl, Turkey 28 Emu 42-53 Geese 35 Japanese Quail 18 Ostrich 42

There are two parts of incubator

hatcher