PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. — At 53, Bert Harman could have shut the barn doors on his chickens and eggs and retired early. Instead, he increased his quota and opened a $1 million, six-tier egg-laying system for more than 42,000 chickens just north of this city.
“I’ve been in the egg business all my life,” the son of a chicken producer said at the barn’s open house April 7.
“I wanted to continue to grow our business. What are you going to do with money, but spend it and then have nothing.”
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The quota expansion to 42,400 birds from 35,000 seemed a good fit with the Harman’s egg processing business in Saskatoon, Star Egg, which supplies retail and wholesale markets throughout Western Canada and Northwest Territories.
“We would like to produce as much product as we can.”
Dave Mackie of the Saskatchewan Egg Producers in Regina said there are 68 egg producers in the province. He said Harman’s new barn represents the largest amount of birds under one roof in the province.
The big barn is part of a “fewer and bigger” trend seen throughout agriculture, he added. It allows the producer numerous cost efficiencies, such as better prices when buying large volumes of poults.
Mackie predicted big egg-laying barns in the future will include washing, candling, sizing and grading. It is already happening at two large Manitoba barns and in the United States, he added.
Harman bought land and joined the family egg-laying operation in 1965 after high school, building a barn for 5,000 birds with his father Walter. In 1978, he bought Star Egg of Saskatoon, which buys from 54 egg producers. It processes and sells 3.4 million eggs from 600,000 hens per week.
He and his wife Darlene make business decisions together, while their two children, Dana and Shawn, work for them. A second son, Curtis, is in university.
He chose the automated Hellmann cage system because of its ability to handle large volumes and its attention to detail. There is also room to double the barn’s size.
Six tiers of cages are stacked in rows, with the top three accessed by a grated floor system on the mezzanine. Hellmann staff from Germany oversaw installation, which took 13 workers a little more than three weeks to complete.
Special features include brushes that sweep debris from egg-carrying conveyor belts, conveyors that take five rows of manure away twice a week to an enclosed area where it is loaded on trucks, and other conveyors that take away eggs for packing and cooler storage.
A chain carries the birds’ feed, which is regulated by a computer that weighs and shows exact daily feed consumption. With the nearest feed supplier 80 kilometres away, Harman said he plans to reduce costs by buying feed from local grain suppliers. He has purchased a truck to haul feed.
Loading chickens into the barn is automated, with carts on rollers elevating the cages to the mezzanine.
Sloped cage floors roll the eggs gently to a collection area, with trays raised every 10 minutes by computer to get the eggs onto conveyor belts. A thin electric shock wire keeps the birds off the eggs and a nipple watering system suspended at the back of the cage allows for self-watering. A tray underneath catches spills.
On the ground floor, raised concrete floors allow for the cleaning and draining that will take place every night. Grated floors allow for air flow and ease of cleaning. Specialized ventilation systems and hot-water heating are also in place.
Three full-time staff and a handful of part-time workers will be required to change each day into work clothes, which are laundered at the barn.
Agrologist Melissa Wanner, Star Egg’s Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points co-ordinator, said the barn has a “start clean-stay clean” program to lower risks of disease and to protect eggs against salmonella.
“If it’s easier to do, it’s more likely it will be done properly,” she said.
HAACP is a food safety program that involves detailed record-keeping to ensure food safety.
In 1999, Star Egg became the first egg grading station in Canada to implement HAACP.
“Customers are demanding safer food,” she said.
“It’s up to producers to realize that and design safer places like this.”
Harman said that following the open house, the barn would be fumigated and closed to the public.
Nineteen-week-old birds are expected to arrive by May 1 at the new barn, financed through Farm Credit Corp.
They will spend a year here before their final move to a slaughter plant.
Mackie said the only impediment to bigger barns is road bans, which prevent shipping fresh product at certain times of the year.
He said the barn offers birds high quality feed, readily available water, good air flow and improved cage stocking rates.
The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals recommends one bird per 413 sq. centimetres while the Harman cages offer 464 sq. cm per bird, with six in each cage.
