Perdue Farms, a family owned fourth-generation U.S. food and agricultural company, has decided to incorporate the on-farm hatching concept “NestBorn” into their broiler production & supply chain. The adoption of this innovative & future-proof approach to hatch day-old chicks in broiler barns – instead of in hatcheries – perfectly fits into the company’s belief in responsible food and agriculture, and is aligned with its deep, long-standing commitments towards animal care and No Antibiotics Ever.In the summer of 2023, a demonstration NestBorn Egg Placing Machine was placed into operation by Perdue Foods near its headquarters on the Delmarva peninsula in order to efficiently transfer larger volumes of pre-incubated hatching eggs into broiler barns. It was the first time a NestBorn machine, which picks up candled and vaccinated eggs from setter trays in an automated and gentle way to then place those egg directly on the floor of a temperature-controlled broiler barn, was installed in the U.S.
The advantage of hatching directly on-farm is that access to feed and water is immediate, lowering the risk of hungry and thirsty chicks. Additionally, hatchery handling and day-old chick transport are also eliminated which means potential discomfort of the newly hatched chick is avoided. Overall, these “Higher Welfare Hatching Practices” will also translate into enhanced chick quality & health benefits.
After more than one year of demonstration and validation in a “deep litter” context, Perdue Farms and NestBorn, have agreed – in a preferred partnership context – to further deploy the NestBorn on-farm hatching solution. In its first phase, two state-of-the-art NestBorn Egg Placing Machines – constructed and supported by automation expert Viscon – will be deployed in the U.S., significantly increasing the number of on-farm hatched chicks in Perdue’s operations.
“In our mission to responsibly raise animals for food, we always are looking for continuous improvement of animal welfare,” said Bruce Stewart Brown, Chief Science Officer for Perdue Farms. “A few years ago, we started to investigate the feasibility and potential benefit of on-farm hatching in our operations. We started taking pre-incubated eggs to broiler barns, instead of using the hatcher. We concluded that NestBorn is an additional asset for our broiler operations that will help further our efforts around the highest animal care and in our commitment to no antibiotics ever.”On behalf of the Belgian-based NestBorn company, General Manager Erik Hoeven shared his pleasure with this first expansion outside the European continent saying, “Since the official launch of NestBorn in 2018, chicks have been hatched on-farm with our concept in more than 10 European countries. We are very pleased that we found a visionary poultry company as PERDUE FARMS, who helped to fine-tune the equipment and methodology for the specific U.S. barn conditions. We hope that favoring the barns instead of the hatchers for the final 2 or 3 days of the hatching process, can offer alternative solutions for PERDUE FARMS in terms of future hatchery designs and investment strategies.”
About Perdue Farms
We’re a fourth-generation, family-owned, U.S. food and agriculture company. Through our belief in responsible food and agriculture, we are empowering consumers, customers, and farmers through trusted choices in products and services. Perdue Foods consists of a premium protein portfolio, including our flagship PERDUE® brand, Niman Ranch®, Coleman Natural®, and Yummy®, as well as our pet brands, Spot Farms® and Full Moon®, and is available through various channels including retail, foodservice, club stores and our direct-to-consumer website, PerdueFarms.com. Perdue AgriBusiness is a leading merchandiser, processor, and exporter of agricultural products and the largest U.S. manufacturer of specialty, organic, and non-GMO oils. It also ranks as one of the largest suppliers of organic feed ingredients in the world. Now in our company’s second century, we never use drugs for growth promotion in raising poultry and livestock, and we are actively advancing our animal welfare programs. Our brands are leaders in no-antibiotics-ever and in USDA-certified organic proteins. Learn more at Corporate.PerdueFarms.com.
About NestBorn
NestBorn (www.nestborn.eu) is a Belgian-based company, established in 2018. The company is family-owned and the idea of the on-farm hatching system “NestBorn” originates from 2nd and 3rd generation hatchery & poultry passionate entrepreneurs. As believers in “more-than-early-feeding” and in “accessible and low-boundary on-farm hatching”, the concept of placing eggs directly on the floor & litter – using a large-capacity mobile egg transferring machine – originated within the R&D department of the company in 2016 and 2017, and this resulted in various world-wide patents around the NestBorn system & equipment. In terms of additional equipment & full control over the hatching process, NestBorn also makes available remote & real-time monitoring devices (for eggshells temperatures and barn conditions), all visualized on the www.mynestborn.eu platform. Customers (hatcheries and broilers integrations) of NestBorn are located in UK, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, France, The Netherlands and Germany.
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