Eggs and the rearing process

- Singaporeans consume 4 million eggs daily
- to satisfy the stupendous demand, a hen lay eggs daily on average
- chicks which are darker in colour are female, and the fairer ones are males
- more than 26,000 hens inside the farm in Lim Chu Kang

- Singapore can't rear meat chickens but hens can be reared for their eggs
- race against time to move the chicks after 21 days of incubation, the chicks must be separated by gender

- females are favoured over males
- male chicks are sold for other purposes
- female chicks are moved to their new homes to perform the duty of laying eggs
- sent to the chicken coops and since their immunity isn't very strong, they have to undergo 3 rounds of vaccination
- 3 different inoculation methods are used for these 3 vaccines: to strengthen the chicks' nervous, respiratory and immunity systems

- chicks are placed in the chicken coops after vaccinated
- every coop has a lamp to keep them warm
- the coops are covered with canvas when it's raining which act as blankets

- after 17 weeks the hens will lay their first eggs
- a hen lays an egg at every 27-hr interval and lays 300 eggs a year on average
- apart from the different species of egg-laying chickens, the feed is a crucial factor

- from the regular chickens, kampong chickens to black chickens consume different kinds of feed
- besides the standard 50% maize content, other ingredients are mixed in according to different market requirements
- beside every chicken coop is a feed bin whereby the feeding system is triggered automatically 5 times a day

- egg-laying chickens and meat chickens are different
- nutrients absorbed by egg-laying chickens are essentially passed to the eggs
- egg-laying chickens are relatively lean

- open and free chicken coop and enter after sanitise boots
- about 3000 chickens in the coop and the chickens reared are of higher quality
- the white-feathered chickens lay white eggs instead of the brown ones
- the hens have a biological clock which tells them when to lay eggs here

- when collecting the eggs by hand, the pointed ends must face downwards
- there's a sac beneath the rounded end which enables the water vapour inside to evaporate
- similarly when placing the eggs inside the refrigerator, so the eggs can last longer
- a bigger coop can hold 26,000 hens
- due to the large number of hens, an egg conveyor system is used to collect the eggs

- every chicken coop has a vertical ventilation system and large exhaust fans to keep the chickens cool at all times
- on ave the 26,000 chickens can lay 350,000 eggs daily
- the eggs will be taken by the conveyor belt to the packaging centre
- after sorting the eggs will be sold to the market

- ugly and wrinkled or cracked ones will be condemned
- the eggs are sorted by species and weight differentials of about 5g
- some eggs have to be cleansed specially
- they are sorted again manually after the first round of packaging
- small trays are packaged according to different requirement and quantities
- Singapore rarely produces its own food due to a lack of economies of scale
- rather than compete with other agriculture-based countries on price, it's wiser to compete on quality