New barn good for egg-producing chickens
140,000 eggs each day to come from state-of-the-art Wainfleet farm
Hard-boiled, over-easy, scrambled, fried, sunny side up, poached or omelette — no matter how you like your eggs chances are you’ve probably had more than a few from Niagara Peninsula’s largest egg producer, Wainfleet-based Chaudary Poultry Farm.
“We produce what Ontario consumes,” said second-generation egg farmer Imran Chaudary from one of his barns on Abbey Road.
Imran and his wife Lisa welcomed family, friends and people from the industry to their poultry farm Saturday to showcase a new barn, their fourth, that will house some 52,500 chickens at the end of the month.
“Our last barn was built in 2012 and the new one has enriched cages that are the new industry standard,” said Lisa.
She said it has cages that hold three birds per cage and that have perches, scratching pads, nesting boxes and a private egg laying area.
“It’s an enriched system … a more bird-friendly equipment. We’re phasing away from conventional cages,” said Imran, adding it’s in keeping with a new code of practice.
He said the cages try to mimic the natural ways of the birds yet are still able to have disease control and yield cleaner eggs.
When production is underway no one, other than employees, are allowed inside the barns.
“The workers have their own clothing they change into … and there’s a threshold they can’t cross with human food,” Imran said.
The restrictions are to ensure that nothing is brought in from outside that could contaminate the chickens.
Lisa said they started planning for the new barn last year and construction started in March of this year and wrapped up in June.
She said Germany-based Hellmann Poultry Equipment sent workers over from Europe in July to get the new cages and barn set up.
Once the chickens — all are about 19 weeks old — are moved into the barns there will be 141,000 on-site producing close to 140,000 eggs per day.
The chickens, Imran said, come from growers across Ontario including one in nearby Caistor Centre.
“We have multiple breeds here — Lohman, Delkab and Shaver. We’re only allowed to keep them for 358 days and then we have a seven-day shutdown where we pressure wash and disinfect the buildings. Then a new flock comes in,” said Imran, whose family started producing eggs in Smithville in 1977 before moving to Wainfleet in 1980.
His father was an engineer and his mother a nurse before they started in the industry. Imran spent a few years working in the oil industry in the U.S. gulf area before coming back home to farm full time.