The most modern hatchery in the S. Hemisphere

The new Baiada Hatchery will be located in Tamworth, New South Wales, and HatchTech Incubation Technology will, among other goods, supply 54 setters with a capacity of 126,720 eggs, 9 setters with a capacity of 84,480 eggs, and 30 hatchers with a capacity of 42,240 eggs. The hatchery will have a total doc/week hatching capacity of over 2.1 mln. It is reported that the hatchery will be operational by the end of September 2008.

The process of selecting incubation equipment involved a trial over a 4 month period conducted by Baiada staff lead by Dr Jorge Ruiz: “The objective was to achieve optimum performance throughout the complete integration. There are various methods to measure quality. For this test, Baiada used the in-hatchery parameters ‘hatch of fertile’, ‘chick length’, ‘yolk free body mass’, and the field parameters ‘7 day mortality’ and ‘7 day weight’. We realise that embryo’s demand uniform heating and cooling transfer and appropriate moisture loss to maintain a good embryo temperature. The better an incubator is able to provide perfect circumstances, the easier it is to maintain the optimal embryo temperature.”