By Matt Donald, pig & poultry producer, north Yorkshire
A month into saving hatching eggs out of the new farm and it is safe to say things have worked quite smoothly. A few minor teething issues are what you expect when starting a new site up but we cannot complain, the birds achieved 91% hen housed production which is solid for broiler breeders.
The newest piece of kit to our business is the Meggsius Select from Vencomatic. This is part of the Prinzen range and it forms part of our automated handling of the fertile hatching eggs. This part in particular is designed to use camera technology to select cracked and dirty eggs out from the rest, alongside weighing of the eggs to remove anything too small and double yolks, neither of which are suitable for hatching.
Although initially it took a week or two to get the set up perfected, as all the parameters of dirtiness, yolk and defects can be adjusted to suit the finished standard you wish to achieve, it is now working very well.
We decided to install it to remove the need for someone to be stood at the roller table selecting cracked and dirty eggs manually. It does make things easier on the farm and so far saves quite a bit of time. We need to run it for a flock to determine its full potential, but early signs are promising.
We are in the process of installing the control and count, which will automatically control all the egg belts at a variable speed to deliver a set quantity of eggs to the packer per hour. It can also show you the problem areas within the shed as it knows which nest each egg is laid in, so if there was an increased amount of cracked or dirty eggs we can pinpoint the issue faster. I look forward to seeing this up and running this month.