How To Set Up A Hatchery Business

Many people focus on owning poultry farms to become the producers of chicken meat and eggs but, little or no focus is given to the main source of the birds.

Have you ever wondered where these birds come from? How the eggs laid are been transformed into chicks? If your answer is yes, great, but if no, you are about to find out now.

All eggs produced by the birds in the poultry farm are not consumed for food, if not there would not be any more birds left to breed.

Also, not all the birds in your farm were produced the traditional way; that is a mother hen seating on her eggs to incubate them and then hatching them.
There is what is called the hatchery; that is the operation which involves some techniques and machines for the production of chicks from eggs.
This is a huge business in poultry farming and an opportunity not fully maximized.

There is a huge gap between chicken meat and eggs consumption and production in Nigeria despite the heavy reliance on importation of frozen chicken and eggs. What this simply means is that there is a shortage of chicken in the market while demand is rising.

Running a hatchery operation business means you are the producer of chicks that are bred into a full and matured chicken that produce meat and eggs.
There is always a high demand for chicks by farmers all year-round. In fact, there is no way you can meet up with demand because the poultry business is a huge business with an outrageous market.

According to Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the demand for eggs in Nigeria is about 790,000 MT.

This business is very easy yet very delicate and needs some level of expertise for a successful operation and robust output.

Here are some things you must master before starting up. They are:

Temperature
Humidity
Ventilation (Oxygen and Carbon dioxide level and air velocity)
Position of eggs
Turning of eggs

The steps of hatchery operations followed in commercial hatcheries are:

Securing hatching eggs
Traying hatching eggs
Fumigation
Cold Storage
Warm eggs before setting
Loading of eggs
Candling
Transfer of eggs
Pulling the hatch
Hardening the chicks
Grading the chicks
Sexing the chicks
Vaccination
Chick delivery
Washing and cleaning
Disposal of waste

Furthermore, you need a very clean environment to avoid any form of contamination of eggs which are very delicate.

Here are some vital rooms you need when building your hatchery.

Hatchery rooms
Shower room
Hatching eggs receiving counter
Fumigation room
Egg holding (egg-cooler) room
Pre-incubation warming room
Setter room
Egg candling (dark) room
Hatcher room
Chick Holding Room
Washroom
Cleanroom

Equipment

You also need the following types of equipment and machines to successfully run this business. Note that most of these pieces of equipment are on the high side and are of different grades.

Egg Trays
Egg Setter
Incubator
Hatcher
Candler
HVAC (Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioner)
Egg Transfer Machine
Generator
Fumigation Chamber
Trolley
Sexing equipment (vaccinator, sexing turntable)
Truck

Ensure that there is a market for every single bird you will produce. You also need a simple marketing strategy that will create awareness for your business to the right audience which is poultry farmers.