On returning to a South American hatchery, I discovered that the hatchery manager I had worked with and seen grow into his role for the past three years had left. Together, we had made changes to conditions inside the hatchery as well as to incubation programs, such that the hatchery was performing very well, with consistently high chick quality, narrow hatch windows and hatchabilities well above standard. The ‘new face’ that greeted me seemed very pleased to see me, admitting that since starting his new job, the hatchery’s management had noted a downward trend in results ..read more

When I’m involved in the Hatchery Management Training I often mention that hatching is 'looking, listening and smelling', even though sensor technology is gaining popularity. I say this to encourage young hatchery managers to sometimes get out of their hermetically sealed office and take a slow, attentive walk through the hatchery. Since a visit to a small hatchery in Asia to discuss switching from multi-stage to single-stage incubation, I know that it’s worth being on 'smell alert' even before entering the hatchery ..read more

During a recent trip to the tropics, I had the chance unexpectedly to visit a hatchery that was due to host a Pas Reform Academy Seminar. My unplanned visit was well received, giving the hatchery manager the chance to talk to me about chick quality, which was not, he said ..read more

As a millennial, I grew up with technology, and personally I feel that technology makes life easier. The smartphone in your back pocket connects you to the whole world and the possibilities are endless ..read more

Customers and participants on our training courses often ask me: “What is the most important aspect of incubation ..read more

A while ago, I visited a day old broiler chick hatchery in Western Europe. The hatchery manager was having serious discussions with one of his clients, who found first week mortality in the chicks delivered from this hatchery to be too high ..read more

During a seminar just before the summer holidays in Brazil, one of the participants asked about the order of importance for the three factors of temperature, humidity and ventilation, in order to achieve optimised incubation. I replied that all three are relevant, but ..read more

I was recently invited to a layer hatchery that was reporting slightly lower hatchability than its sister hatcheries, despite using eggs from the same flocks with the same pre-setting treatment ..read more

Egg quality is a very important part of incubation. And, as we often say, bad input equals bad output. We simply cannot create good quality chicks from poor quality eggs, as one of my recent hatchery visits proved ..read more

"Why are so many chicks dying in their first week?" I could hear the worry in his voice when I received a call from the manager of a single-stage broiler hatchery in southern Brazil. It was a cold winter ­yes, even in this tropical country temperatures can go below 10°C – and he was getting reports of 3-5% of chicks dying in their first week. And in some cases even 10 ..read more