Cairo Poultry Company’s hatchery grows through challenging times

The Cairo Poultry Company may have opened its Nubaria hatchery only months before Egypt was hit by avian influenza H5N1, but the facility has certainly managed to grow in the face of adversity. It was able to withstand the drop in demand for poultry meat but was ready to respond once the industry started to rebuild.

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The Cairo Poultry Company may have opened its Nubaria hatchery only months before Egypt was hit by avian influenza H5N1, but the facility has certainly managed to grow in the face of adversity. It was able to withstand the drop in demand for poultry meat but was ready to respond once the industry started to rebuild.

Located some 40 km from Alexandria, the site is used to supply day-old chicks both to the company’s rearing sites, one of which is nearby, and to external customers.

Production started in 2005, with 22 million day old-chicks, and since then the facility has been gradually expanded and updated. Capacity was doubled two years later, and increased again by 22 million in 2009. The hatchery produces 66 million chicks each year, accounting for some two-thirds of the day-old chicks produced by the company. The Cairo Poultry Company produces 90 million day-old broiler chicks each year, accounting for 13 percent of the Egyptian market.

The hatchery is run by two managers with the help of nine shift engineers and 60 other employees. In addition, there are support staff and drivers.

Infection control

The Nubaria hatchery is the larger of the fully integrated company’s two hatcheries, and although at a relatively isolated location, biosecurity is high on the agenda.

Vehicles entering the premises are automatically washed down and disinfected and visitors must shower. All internal processes run from clean to dirty and static air pressure follows the same course. Strict protocols for disinfection are followed and the building is regularly swabbed.

And this attention to preventing possible infection extends to the chicks that the hatchery sends to the Cairo Poultry Company’s farms.

Hatcheries Sector Manager Aysar Abu El-Enen explains that day-old chicks are either injected or spray vaccinated against avian influenza or Newcastle disease, with vaccines varied depending on where in the country they are to be reared.

While adamant that it is up to everyone to protect themselves against disease, he is critical of the consequences resulting from the fragmented nature of the Egyptian poultry industry, saying he wished rooftop rearing would “disappear” but adding that there is greater risk from small farms than backyard rearing.

In and out

Eggs are delivered from breeding farms to the hatchery’s storage room, and some come marked with a blue cross to indicate if there is doubt over their hatchability. Storage at the reception room, where the temperature is held at 18-19C, is for a maximum of one day, before eggs are moved off to one of four storage rooms with a combined capacity for 1 million eggs.

Eggs are separated by farm and date, and information on fertility per house is fed back to breeder farms once eggs have hatched. The hatchery uses Chickmaster equipment and the time of hatch is carefully controlled, depending on the ideal time for chicks to be transported, like in the evening when the temperature is lower. The facility achieves 83 percent hatchability.

In addition to producing day-old chicks, the hatchery also offers training to others within the Cairo Poultry Company group. According to Adel Al-Alfi, the company’s general manager, people are the company’s most important asset, so the Cairo Poultry Company has a strong interest in increasing their level of skills, expertise and efficiency.

Despite the rapid expansion of the hatchery since its opening, there are currently no public plans to expand capacity. However, while running seven days a week, there is certainly plenty to keep the staff busy. And like the country as a whole, there is the difficulty of working in an unstable political climate. However, as El-Enen says: “A hatchery is like a big plane: it’s very complicated, and it never stops.”

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