[MUSIC] What we're going to look at now is poultry production systems. I'd like to review with you the major industries in the poultry industry. One is layers and those are the birds that lay table eggs. The second are broilers, which are your meat type birds and these are meat type chickens. And then turkeys, and I'll go over the life cycle with you and then also the housing. Pictured on this slide are the layer birds up in the left upper corner, broiler birds in the middle, and turkeys on the upper right-hand side. And you can see the difference between the layer birds and the broiler birds. The layer birds are a little bit smaller in stature. The broiler birds are producing meat, so they are going to be a heavier bird and are going to be stockier in stature. I'd like to start with some definitions. The first definition is a primary breeder company. And that company will supply genetic stock to the commercial industry. And that could become more clear as we look through the life cycle of the bird. These breeds are developed, depending on the industry that they're dealing with for the layer birds, or egg production, egg size. For the broilers, could be meat yield, growth, feed efficiency. So each of those breeds, depending on what industry you're dealing with. The genetics of those birds are developed by these primary breeder companies. If we continue on with the definitions, first let's start with the definition of a pullet. And a pullet is an immature, female laying hen. So she hasn't started laying eggs at this point. They're grown to about 16 to 18 weeks of age, and then they will go into a layer facility, and they start laying eggs at about 20 to 22 weeks of age, and they are considered a mature laying hen, and they're called layers. Next are poults, and poults are immature turkeys. And they can be males or females. And the male turkey is called a tom turkey. And the female turkey is called a hen. So as I said, it'll become more clear to you as to the breeder company, etc. So the commercial breeder company will sell the egg breeders to a commercial company. Those egg breeders produce fertile eggs. Those fertile eggs are taken to a hatchery. They're put into an incubator and 21 days later, out hatch chickens. In the layer industry, the male birds are euthanized at the day of age. They are not used in the system. The females go through the system, and they're young pullets until 16 to 18 weeks of age. Then they're moved to the layer house, and then they start laying eggs. And those eggs can be used for table eggs or a whole host of different products. And those products are your shell eggs, or your table eggs. But eggs, and I'm only giving you a short list here, but can be used in many, many different products. So you've got liquid eggs, which are pasteurized eggs. Those can be found in a carton. Bakery products, bakeries will use that. And they can be ingredients in ice cream. If we look at layer production and I'm going to first show you what we call the conventional cages. So these birds are in cages. There's feed in front of them, there's water in the cage and then there's an egg belt where you can see the eggs are in front of those birds. And that egg belt will automatically take that egg into an egg room where those eggs are packaged. More recently, we are starting to see a trend towards a different type of cage. And with this different type of cage they're called enriched cages and these particular cages allow the birds to exhibit their behaviors. Which are scratching, which you can see on the bottom side, the bottom part of the slide, or perching on the upper right part of the slide. And have less birds per cage where they can spread out their wings, they can sit down, again, scratch and perch. So that's a trend in the industry as we're going from a conventional cage to enrich cages. The other trend in the industry is to go cage-free. And this is an aviary system where the birds are laying eggs so they are layer birds, but they are in an aviary system where they have foo, they have water, and they have nest areas so they can lay their eggs. But they are not in cages. So that is the layer industry. So now let's turn to the broiler industry. Again, we have the breeder companies that will supply the broiler breeders. Those broiler breeders will produce fertile eggs is your chickens again. So they go to the hatchery in 21 days later, it's hatches a chicken. And these are meat type birds. And those chicks are both males and females. And they are grown on a boiler farm. And depending on the product that the industry is trying to raise. They may raise roaster birds which may go to 12 weeks, 14 weeks of age. Or, if they're raising a broiler bird for parts, such as the breast meat, or the leg meat, they may only be raised for six to eight weeks of age. And then they are processed. This is a picture of a broiler house. These birds are not in cages. They are grown on the ground, on litter. Again, they have their food and their water. And again, they're grown could be six to eight weeks of age, or if they're bigger birds, for roasters they are grown a longer period of time. Now the chicken products as you know, they're in the store. They're many, many different chicken products. You can have uncooked products, you can have whole birds, you can have parts of birds. You can have cooked products. Some of the examples of the cooked products are chicken nuggets, you can have luncheon meat, and there's a whole variety of chicken products. So those are the two chicken industries, the layer industry and the boiler industry. So they laying eggs and the meat type chicken industry. Now let's turn to the turkey industry. Again, there's the genetic stock that is made by the primary company and then you have turkey breeders. They produce fertile eggs, and those fertile eggs when they go to the hatchery, it takes 28 days for them to hatch. And what is hatched is called a poult which is an immature turkey, and those are both males and females. But they are actually grown in separate houses. They grow at very different rates, have different feeding programs, so they're grown in separate houses. The males are called toms, and the females are called hens. And this is just a picture of one of the turkey houses. When they start out as babies on the left hand side, they are in their brooder house where we keep them in a confined area. They have their food and they have their water. And they have a heating element there to keep them warm. And as they grow, they are let out of that confined area. And you can see the picture on the right, they go into a grow-out house that is another section of that house or maybe a house that is right on the property that they will move to. And those birds, depending again on the industry and depending on what type of products that you're growing. They may grow 16 weeks of age, could grow 20 weeks of age. And some of these tom birds can get up to 40 pounds, so very, very large birds. So the products that we see in the turkey industry, again, similar to the broiler industry, the meat chickens, uncooked products. You can get the whole turkey, you can get parts, lots of different cooked products. Again, this is just a few examples, the deli meats, the hot dogs, the bacon, all the smoked products, so many, many different turkey products out there. So when we review what we've looked at is a layers, or to produce your table eggs. And these are either cage, or cage free. And the cages as I indicated are being changed. To many of them are now, the enrich cages or other birds, or your meat-type chickens, they are grown on the ground, on litter, not in cages. Turkeys are grown on the ground also, and those are your meat-type birds also.
