Following a three-day-long open house, Centurion Poultry officially opened its new Goldfield, Iowa, hatchery for business on February 19, 2013. Gijs Schimmel, president, Centurion Poultry Inc., said that opening the “Prairie Gold” hatchery has been a dream since the company bought a nearby breeder farm in 2000.
With the largest layer population of any state, Iowa was a logical site for the 35,000 square foot facility. The Prairie Gold hatchery has a capacity three times larger than the old facility in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, that it is replacing. Centurion will continue to operate four other hatcheries in Alabama, Missouri and Pennsylvania, and the partnership with Nelson Poultry Farms in Kansas. The five hatcheries will have a combined capacity of 55 million pullet chicks annually.
