1. Hatchery Operations in Marcela Farms, Incorporated at Bilar, Bohol
Archie Cris C. Yap
Adviser: Dr. Mary Jasmine Ang

2. Where are the eggs coming from??
Two breeder sites in DIMIAO (11,000 eggs per day) and in Bilar (21,000 eggs per day). That’s a picture of me in Bilar just to prove that I was there 
Every day they deliver eggs in the hatchery DIMIAO (7AM) and BILAR 8:30 & 9:30. They have a saying here.. Its always a Monday.
Dimiao, Bohol
Bilar, Bohol
HATCHERY

3. Arrival of the Egg Van
(LEFT PICTURE ABOVE)The egg van upon arrival must pass thru the tire bath and sprayed with GQ plus; the driver must pass the sprinkler with GQ plus to be disinfected. (RIGHT PICTURE)The egg van has an internal airconditioner and the temperature of the eggs must be maintained around 20degress celsius.
(LEFT PICTURE BELOW)The transfer of eggs inside the hatchery building

4. Biosecurity measures upon arrival
MALE SHOWER ROOM 
All the people entering the hatchery building must first take a bath; The company provides free clothes and free laundry for their employees and visitors.

5. Receiving Area Fig. 1. Egg handling room (left); setter trays (right)
This is the egg handling room/ egg traying room is the section where eggs are sorted and transferred from farm egg trays to setter trays.
The temperature is around 20degrees celsius.
Three personnel are assigned all female. They inspect the eggs before transferring in the setter tray.
The cracked, soft-shelled or double yolks are not accepted and returned in the breeder farms.
The capacity of a setter tray is 150pieces of eggs equivalent to 5 farm egg trays or one bundle.
Fig. 1. Egg handling room (left); setter trays (right)

6. (LEFT PICTURE) The egg holding room/ egg storage room is where the eggs are moved after sorting in the egg handling room. The trolleys hold the setter trays, each trolley has a capacity of 32 setter trays or 4,800 pieces of eggs. The capacity of the egg holding room is 36 trolleys or 172, 800 eggs.
Eggs can be stored up to a week. The temperature inside is around 17.5 to 18 °C.
Every Mon, Wed and Fri they do setting or placing of eggs in an incubator/setter room.
RIGHT ABOVE: But before doing so, they have to fumigate the eggs by mixing 400mL formalin in 200g potassium permanganate for an hour.
After that, the 12 trolleys or 57,600 eggs are transferred in the setter/incubator room.

7. INCUBATOR/ SETTER
Take note that the preheating process ( or gradual increase in temperature) occurs in the setter room; they have pre-settings in the controls. 4hours of preheating for eggs stored for 4 days below and 5 hours preheating for 5-7 days.
The incubator’s brand is Petersime as we can all see here 
This is a single stage incubator meaning all the eggs will hatch at the same time.
On the average the temperature is around °C and 80% relative humidity
In MFI they have 12 incubators and 6 hatchers.
The priceis 36,000 euro = P2,216, (1 euro= P61.57) roughly 2.2M for each ech incubator with a capacity of 57,600 eggs.
Why is it expensive?? What is so special about this incubator?

8. Embryo- Response Incubation™
DWLS™
OvoScan ™
Petersime’s patented system
It has four components that guarantees a constant interaction between environment factors and the developing embryo (DWLS™ (Dynamic Weight Loss System) for humidity , CO2NTROL™ for the correct CO2 levels, OvoScan ™ for temperature, and Synchro-Hatch™ for a short hatch window.
It has online diagnosis of the real embryo incubation parameters and the system constantly and interactively adapts to create the optimal environment for each specific batch of eggs
CO2NTROL™
Synchro-Hatch

9. CANDLING
On the 18th day, TRANSFER is done from the setter room to the hatcher. But before doing so, candling must be done.
(LEFT ABOVE) with the use of yellow bulbs, the setter trays are placed on top..
(LEFT BELOW)You can easily see detect the eggs that weren’t able to fully develop. The lighter shaded ones are taken/ rejected and sold as as penoys (for only 1.60 cents).
(RIGHT BELOW)In here from the setter trays the eggs are transferred in hatcher baskets.
Beware of exploders or contaminated eggs, this are rotten eggs that have accumulated foul gas that major-majorly must be removed. Handle with care!

10. BREAK-OUT Early embryonic death Infertile
So every now and then, they do break-outs.
This is a process to check if the eggs that weren’t able to develop was due to early embryonic death or infertility.
The eggs that will be sold as penoys during the candling process were randomly chosen and manually opened.
(LEFT PICTURE) blood tinged, dot/ dark spot
(RIGHT PICTURE) donut-sized ring; no significant findings; the usual layer egg
The importance is to be able to assess if the cause of death is mismanagement/ mishandling or just an infertile egg produced by the breeder flock
Early embryonic death
Infertile

11. HATCHER
So going back, after candling all the viable eggs are transferred in the hatcher room for 3 days before pull-out.
They are placed in hatcher baskets because they need to be positioned in horizontally; if they stay in the setter this will cause deformities for the chick.
All the 6 hatchers will be occupied by one batch that has been transferred from the setter room.
The price is 19,000 euro = P1,169,811.76; roughly 1.1M per hatcher with a capacity of 9600 eggs.
From 57,600 eggs that were set only around 50,000 will hatch with an average of 85% hatchability.
Variations in hatchablity: for very young breeder flocks around 80 % hatchability, 85% young, 90% priime and 70% old; the trend is increasing from 25 weeks to 45 weeks then goes down
Age group: very young 25weeks to 28 weeks, young 28.1 to 34 weeks, prime 34.1 to 45 weeks and old 45 weeks to culling

12. CHICK QUALITY INSPECTION
From the hatcher basket we transfer the viable chicks in the chick basket/ chick crate. 100 heads must be placed in the chick basket (25 per quarter). We inspect the navel,it must be dry and healed. There should be no defect observed. There are not fully hatched chicks left ‘ pippings’ the ones who came out a bit late.. They are discarded.
Fig. 2 Physical examination and headcount of chicks.

13. CLASSIFICATION OF CHICKSB B C C
Class A are the prime birds (no defect) and sold for P20 in the grow-out farms also owned by MFI; important to check the navel must be dry and intact
Class B are the chicks with slight defect such as flat buttons, string needle, immature feathering ‘wet look’, weak; these are sold for P16 in Cebu (person from Cebu picks them up from the hatchery then sold them in Cebu in agrivet supply stores or outside the church ‘colorful na sisiw’
Class C are chicks who has obvious defects such as malaking tiyan, splayed legs, unhealed navel, very weak
Not all will be taken by the middleman; the remaining are discarded
Fig. 3 The chicks with deformities that will be chosen by the middleman to be sold in Cebu.

14. VACCINATION OF NEWBORN CHICKS
All the chicks are vaccinated for ND and IB before transfer in the farm. The drug company provides automatic vaccinator ; The amazing part here is not only the automatic vaccinator but also this cute guy on the right picture. WHY? He can assess if there is excess or insufficient chicks per chick basket based on the weight everytime he puts them inside the vaccinator. So, we do recounting if he says so.
Fig. 4 Vaccination against ND + IB through intraocular/ intranasal route.

15. DELIVERY OF NEWBORN CHICKS
Around 3PM to avoid heat stress the newly vaccinated chicks are transferred to the grow-out farms owned by MFI. Inside the egg van they have blowers/ fans for good ventilation.
A tyden seal is placed on the locked door of the egg van to assure that there will be no tampering or stealing of the chicks on there way to the farm.
MFI has four farm sites and 40 buildings (25,000 capacity per building) all tunnel ventilation.

16. CLEANING and DISINFECTION
They use power spray and knapsack for cleaning and disinfection. Ethaclean AC with water is used for washing. Virocid is used in disinfecting hatcher basket and chick crates as well as the hatcher room and the flooring. Afterwards, they are dried off then fumigated.

17. REJECTED CHICKS
The pippings, chicks with open navels, unhatched eggs and eggshells are all placed in blue containers. What happens to the chicks? They will be taught how to swim..

18. DISPOSAL OF REJECTS AND WASTE MATERIAL
LEFT ABOVE: MALATA or DIMALATA is the bisaya term for biodegradable and non-biodegradable
All the wastes including the rejected chicks and eggshells are flushed like in a toilet, this goes to the lagoon.

19. Vaccination Waste management Flushing
VIDEO PRESENTATION 
Vaccination Waste management Flushing

20. Paper Duty 
During free-time.. Papers are manually torn/punit before placing them in the shredder machine. The shredded papers are placed into the chick crates as litter material/bedding. The chick crates with shredded paper are then fumigated before using.

21. Recommendations
Look for more buyers for the rejected chicks
Give attention and time for the pippings
Give different disinfectants
Avail the formaldehyde flex
Provide more personnel

22. MAAJONG SALAMAT SA PAGPAMATI  BROMANCE at its finest.. 
Im thinking which will be my parting slide.. Ito or yung bisayang goodbye.. Whatcha think?