“Ham And Eggs Off Assembly Line”

Press, Volume C, Issue 29638, 7 October 1961, Page 7

“Ham And Eggs Off Assembly Line”

Two remarkable enterprises in the field of automation in agriculture in the United States of America are reported by the “Economist” of September 30. This journal talks about “ham and eggs about to flow off the assembly line.” In one of these the Agricultural Research Development Corporation of Denver plans to produce 1.2 m pigs every year under completely regulated, germ-free conditions from their conception to slaughter. The scheme is based on 10 years of research by animal husbandry experts which - has shown that any means, however costly, of eliminating dirt and disease is justified because they take such a toll of profits of people who raise pigs by ordinary means. Heated Floor A windowless plant is to be used. Here the pigs produced by artificial insemina. tion, taken from their mothers before natural birth and nurtured for their first four weeks in sterile in. cubators, are housed in 12. pig apartments on concrete floors gently heated from below. They enjoy a uniform temperature of 70 degrees with humidity at 50 per cent, and eat a vitamin-rich diet designed to produce lean meat rather than fat.

The site for the scheme has been carefully selected. Pigs have not been raised there before which reduces the chance of lingering infections and the low humidity discourages diseases like rhinitis and pneumonia. As well the State produces only about 40 per cent, of the pork .sold within its borders. The corporation will also sell franchises for the whole process at 575,000 dollars and two have already gone to large pig farms in the southeast.

For the 575,000 dollars the corporation provides buildings from nurseries to the farrowing and pork production units, complete techniques and 1000 germ-free young sows. It will buy all the, pigs produced and market the meat at premium prices.

The second project under the auspices of Gates Cyclo, Incorporated, .is a 500,000 dollar one designed to produce 80,000 eggs a day. In this set-up the hens come to the attendant. The unit is circular. A structure capable of housing several thousand hens in individual cages seven tiers high is suspended from a central pole which turns it slowly in merry-go-round fashion past a central working point. For two minutes in each hour a hen’s cage is opposite food-and-drink troughs. For the other

58 minutes the hens have nothing to do but talk to their neighbours and lay eggs, says the journal. The eggs roll into a trough in front of the moving cages and the operator picks them off as they come by using a ladder to reach the higher tiers. Droppings fall through the wire mesh floors of the tages to pans underneath and are scraped offl automatically to be treated and sold as fertiliser.

At night for 10 hours the tiers of cages stop revolving and the birds are left motionless and in the dark. The hens are specially-bred hybrid egg-layers and when they cease to produce they are sold for stewing. The plant, which is north-east of Denver, will hold 100,000 hens who will, by past experience, produce 80,000 eggs a day to be cooled, cleaned washed and sent to market. Eight of the huge merry-go-round cages will be in continuous production with a crew of only five men.