Collection: how many times a day, how, and why every hour counts

This lesson is part of Table eggs: from nest to customer specialisation. It opens to every registered student, from free registration. Levels 1 to 5 and the tracks remain readable by everyone.

Between the moment the hen leaves the nest and the moment a hand picks up the egg, nothing good happens. The egg waits in a nest at over 30 °C, under other hens that push it, soil it, sometimes pierce it. In a house of 2,000 layers, that is 1,800 eggs a day waiting, and the difference between two collections and four collections is measured in dozens of cracked or dirty eggs every day. This lesson sets the number of collections, their hours, the equipment, the hand movement, and teaches how to put a figure on what every hour of delay costs.

• ✓Explain what happens to an egg waiting in the nest and why the first half of the morning concentrates the risks
• ✓Set the number and hours of collection according to season and lights-on time, for a floor or cage house
• ✓Choose the collection equipment and apply the hand movement that does not break
• ✓Measure on your own farm the loss per hour of delay and decide the number of rounds

1. What happens to an egg waiting in the nest
2. How many times, at what hours: the collection schedule
3. Equipment: what breaks and what protects
4. The hand movement that does not break
5. Worked example: what an hour of delay costs
6. The collection sheet: count at each round, not in the evening
7. Going further

• •70 to 80% of eggs are laid in the 6 hours after lights-on: it is in the morning that nests overflow and that cracked and dirty eggs are made.
• •At least 3 rounds a day, 4 in hot weather or if cracked > 2%; never more than 3 hours apart in the morning; a nest never at more than 4 or 5 eggs.
• •30-egg trays on a trolley, stacks of 6 at most, separate tray for dirty and floor eggs; the bucket is banned.
• •The hand movement: washed hands, place broad end up, three fingers, remove broken eggs and soiled litter at once, take trays out at each round, close nests in the evening.
• •On the example farm, going from 2 to 4 rounds saved 71 eggs a day for 30 minutes of work: about 1 point of defects per extra hour of waiting. Measure yours.