Table eggs: from nest to customer specialisation
Collect, grade, store, pack and sell clean, fresh eggs
Introduction
A house of 2,000 layers gives about 1,800 eggs a day, and each will be judged by someone who does not know the farm: a housewife at the market, a shop manager, a restaurant cook. They do not look at the lay curve; they look at whether the egg is fresh, clean, whole, the right size, and they come back or they do not. Yet many farms that lay well lose 10 to 20% of the value of their eggs between the nest and the customer: cracked at collection or in stacks, soiled in the nests, washed with water then turned smelly, aged in a room at 34 °C, broken on the motorbike at noon. This NEXTEKCI School specialisation (Agnibilékrou, Côte d'Ivoire) accompanies the egg from the hen to the customer, in ten lessons: what the customer buys (freshness in degree-days, sizes S, M, L, XL, shell, colour), collection three to four times a day, grading into seven categories, dry cleaning, storage and the egg room, candling, packing and labelling with a batch number, selling and the brand that keeps customers. Each notion is explained, worked out in figures on the same house of 2,000 hens, then turned into a field action. Lesson 9 is an exercise on your farm, the losses sheet from nest to box; lesson 10, a case study: too many broken eggs and complaining customers, find where. Never a price: each student puts in their own figures. Open from free registration.
By the end of this specialisation, you will be able to
- ✓Collect three to four times a day and grade into seven categories, so that at least 95% of the eggs leave the house clean, whole and graded
- ✓Apply the dry-cleaning rule, store in degree-days in a well-designed egg room, and check freshness by candling (air cell in millimetres)
- ✓Pack in trays and boxes without breakage, label with lay date, origin and batch number, and trace the cause of a complaint in ten minutes
- ✓Build a balanced customer portfolio (market, shops, restaurants, subscriptions), keep regularity and build an egg brand on three verifiable promises
10 lessons · a 5-question quiz after each lesson · an exam (20 questions, 80%) · verifiable specialisation certificate. Specialisation open to every registered student, in any order.
- 1The table egg: what the customer buys (freshness, size, shell, colour) and what makes them vary
A house of 2,000 brown layers at 90% lay gives 1,800 eggs a day, that is 60 trays of 30. Each of these eggs will be judged by someone who does not know your farm: a housewife at the market, a shop manager, a restaurant cook. They look neither at your lay curve nor at your feed conversion. They look at four things, in a few seconds: is the egg fresh, what size is it, is the shell clean and strong, what colour is it. This first lesson teaches you to see the egg with their eyes, to understand what lies behind each of these four criteria, and to put a figure on what they are worth over a day of 1,800 eggs.
What you will learn- ✓Describe the table egg (shell, cuticle, pores, air cell, white, yolk) and say what each part is for
- ✓Explain how an egg loses its freshness and how fast depending on temperature
- ✓Grade an egg by size (S, M, L, XL in grams) and explain what makes size, shell and colour vary
- ✓Read a day of 1,800 eggs with the customer's eyes and work out, in percent, what sells at your price
Lesson outline- An egg sells on four criteria, and all of them have a cause on your farm
- Freshness: what it is, how it is lost, how fast
- Size: S, M, L, XL in grams, and what makes size vary
- Shell and colour: what the customer believes, what is true
- What the customer does not see but senses: smells, taste, and trust
- Worked example: a day of 1,800 eggs read with the customer's eyes
- Going further
Key points- •The table egg is a living product: it loses water and gas through 7,000 to 17,000 pores, the air cell grows, the white becomes watery; the cuticle is its first protection.
- •Freshness = degrees × days: one day at 30 °C is worth about one week in the cold; about 1% of weight lost per week at 25 °C, twice as much at 32 °C.
- •Sizes: S < 53 g, M 53-63 g, L 63-73 g, XL ≥ 73 g; weigh 10 trays a week and know the distribution before promising.
- •Shell colour = breed, stress, heat, age; yolk colour = feed; blood spots = natural on 1 to 3% of eggs; none of these colours tells freshness.
- •Target: at least 95% clean, whole and graded eggs; each point of defect on 1,800 eggs is 18 eggs a day, 540 a month.
14 min read · 5-question quiz
- 2Collection: how many times a day, how, and why every hour counts
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.
What you will learn- ✓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
Lesson outline- What happens to an egg waiting in the nest
- How many times, at what hours: the collection schedule
- Equipment: what breaks and what protects
- The hand movement that does not break
- Worked example: what an hour of delay costs
- The collection sheet: count at each round, not in the evening
- Going further
Key points- •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.
13 min read · 5-question quiz
- 3Grading: clean, dirty, cracked, misshapen eggs, and what to do with them
The 60 trays of the day arrive at the egg room. Among these 1,800 eggs, there are eggs to sell at your price, eggs to sell cheaper, eggs to eat on the farm and eggs to throw away. Mixing them means selling the good ones at the price of the bad ones and giving customers a reason to complain. Grading is the moment when you separate, count, and learn: each category has a cause, and the percentage of each category tells where the house or the collection is failing. This lesson sets up the grading table, fixes the categories, gives the normal percentages and says, for each one, what to do with it.
What you will learn- ✓Set up a grading table (light, order of movements, destination trays) and grade 1,800 eggs in under an hour
- ✓Recognise and name each category: clean whole, lightly dirty, heavily dirty, cracked firm, broken, misshapen, off-size
- ✓Know the normal percentages and the alert thresholds of each category
- ✓Decide for each category its destination (full-price sale, separate sale, farm, discard) and trace its cause
Lesson outline- Grading answers two questions, egg by egg
- Setting up the grading table and the order of movements
- The categories, their normal percentages and their alert thresholds
- What to do with them: the destination of each category
- Worked example: Tuesday's grading, 1,800 eggs
- The grading sheet: what is written and whom it serves
- Going further
Key points- •Grading answers two questions per egg: full price or not; if not, which category. Seven named categories, a fixed destination for each, a daily count.
- •Smooth table, strong light above, look then listen (two eggs knocked: clear = whole, dull = cracked) then place broad end up; grade after each round.
- •Normal after 30 weeks: clean ≥ 95%, lightly dirty 1 to 2%, heavily dirty < 1%, cracked 1 to 2%, broken < 0.5%, misshapen < 1%; star crack = shell, clean crack = knock.
- •Cracked and heavily dirty eggs are sold separately, announced, the same day, to someone who cooks; broken ones go into the closed bin, never raw to the hens; an egg taken out of full price does not go back.
- •Each point of clean eggs on 2,000 hens = 18 eggs a day; a category above its threshold three days running is a cause to look for.
13 min read · 5-question quiz
- 4To clean or not to clean: the dry-cleaning rule and its exceptions
Faced with a tray of stained eggs, everybody has the same reflex: a basin of water and a cloth. That is the movement that turns a slightly dirty egg into a dangerous one. The shell is not a wall: it is a fine sieve protected by a natural varnish, the cuticle, which water removes, and through which water carries in what it was supposed to remove. This lesson explains the cuticle and the pores, shows why water is dangerous with an example you can repeat, sets the dry-cleaning rule movement by movement, and says what the rare exceptions are.
What you will learn- ✓Explain the role of the cuticle and the pores in the natural protection of the egg
- ✓Say why water is dangerous on a shell and what happens when a washed egg is stored
- ✓Apply dry cleaning: which eggs, which tools, which movement, in how much time
- ✓Know the exceptions and be able to explain the rule to a customer or an employee who wants to wash
Lesson outline- The cuticle and the pores: the egg is protected, as long as it is not undressed
- Why water is dangerous: four mechanisms
- The dry-cleaning rule, movement by movement
- The exceptions: few, and all on the customer's side
- Worked example: what brushing brings in, what washing would cost
- Real cleaning is prevention: fewer dirty eggs coming in
- Going further
Key points- •The inside of a fresh egg is almost sterile; the microbes are on it; the cuticle seals the 7,000 to 17,000 pores and disappears with water or hard rubbing (shiny egg = cuticle gone).
- •Water is dangerous four times over: it removes the cuticle, cold water on a warm egg sucks dirt through the pores, it spreads the stain, and moisture makes eggs rot and go mouldy.
- •Dry cleaning: at grading, within the hour, lightly dirty only, cloth or brush or very fine abrasive, rub the stain and not the egg, 30 seconds maximum; otherwise heavily dirty, separate sale the same day.
- •Exceptions: the customer or you wash the egg just before breaking and cooking it, never before storing it; we refuse to deliver washed eggs without a cold chain.
- •Beyond 40 dirty eggs out of 1,800, the cause is in the nests: close the nests at night, change the nest litter every week, slats in the rainy season, floor eggs collected first.
12 min read · 5-question quiz
- 5Storing: temperature, humidity, shelf life, and the egg room
A clean, whole egg coming off the grading table has all its quality. What it will keep until the customer depends on a single place: the room where it waits. Under sheet metal without a ceiling, at 33 °C in the afternoon, four days are enough to turn a Tuesday egg into an egg the customer judges old on Saturday. In a ventilated room, in the shade, at 24 °C, the same egg still has ten days ahead of it. This lesson gives the shelf life of the egg in days according to temperature, the humidity needed, the first in first out rule, and the plan of an egg room for a house of 2,000 layers.
What you will learn- ✓Explain what storage slows down (water, carbon dioxide, microbes) and what the three enemies of the stored egg are
- ✓Give the egg's shelf life in days according to temperature and calculate the 'equivalent' age of a batch
- ✓Set the humidity, ventilation and smells of the room, and apply first in first out with dates
- ✓Size and fit out an egg room for 2,000 layers, with or without cold
Lesson outline- Storing means slowing three losses
- Temperature: shelf life in days
- Humidity, air and smells
- First in, first out: the rule that stops old eggs from existing
- The egg room for 2,000 layers: sizing and fitting out
- Going further
Key points- •Storing means slowing the loss of water, the loss of carbon dioxide and the microbes; the three enemies: heat, air too dry or too humid, and temperature changes (condensation).
- •Shelf life: 4 to 5 weeks at 4-7 °C; 7 to 14 days at 22-26 °C; 4 to 7 days at 28-32 °C; 2 to 3 days above 32 °C. One day at 30 °C ≈ one week in the cold: age counts in degree-days.
- •Humidity 70 to 80%; two high screened openings; no fan on the eggs; no smell; never a tray on the floor.
- •First in, first out: date on every tray, one side to store and one side to take, maximum age displayed, stock counted every evening; the useful reading is the age of the oldest tray.
- •Room for 2,000 hens: 5 days of production = 300 trays, about 7 m of shelving in 3 m by 2.5 m, ceiling under the sheet metal, north or east side; cold only if constant until the customer.
13 min read · 5-question quiz
- 6Candling and quality control: air cell, spots, float test, sizing
Grading looks at the outside of the egg. The customer judges the inside, and discovers it when breaking the egg in the kitchen. Between the two, someone must look through the shell before them: that is candling. A lamp, a box with a hole, a dark room, and the egg becomes transparent: the air cell tells its age in millimetres, invisible cracks appear as lines of light, spots can be seen, the yolk can be made out. This lesson teaches how to build and use a candler, how to read what it shows, how to do the float test when it is useful, how to size, and how to build a daily quality control on 50 eggs that protects the other 1,800.
What you will learn- ✓Build a simple candler and candle an egg in good conditions
- ✓Read the air cell in millimetres and deduce freshness; recognise cracks, blood spots, dark spots, moulds, mobile yolk
- ✓Use the float test and the shake test wisely, knowing their limits
- ✓Size by weighing and keep a control plan of 50 eggs a day with decision thresholds
Lesson outline- Why control what grading has already looked at
- Building and using a candler
- Reading the air cell: freshness in millimetres
- Spots, yolk, cracks: what else the light shows
- The float test and the shake test: useful, but not on the farm
- Sizing: weigh, class, check the promise
- The control sheet and the decision thresholds
- Going further
Key points- •Control covers a sample of 50 graded eggs a day, at random, and decides the whole batch; it looks for what grading does not see: freshness, hidden cracks, spots, size.
- •Candler: opaque box, strong lamp, 25-30 mm hole, in the dark; turn the egg; 10 seconds per egg.
- •Air cell: ≤ 4 mm extra fresh; 4-6 mm fresh; 6-9 mm to sell quickly; > 9 mm old, not at full price; mobile = ruptured membrane, withdrawal. It measures real age, not the calendar.
- •Blood spots 1 to 3% normal; dark spot or mould = withdrawal and search for wetted, washed, cracked eggs, or a humid room; the float test wets the egg: for the customer or an egg to be broken, never for an egg to be stored.
- •Sizing: scale or grading machine set at 53, 63, 73 g; 30 eggs of 60 g = 1,800 g; 'large' tray > 1,890 g net; decision thresholds written on the sheet.
14 min read · 5-question quiz
- 7Packing and labelling: trays, flats, boxes, date, origin, batch
A graded, candled, fresh egg can still be lost in the last ten minutes: a warped tray, a stack too high, a badly closed box, and it arrives cracked. And a perfect egg without any indication is an anonymous egg: the customer does not know where it comes from or when it was laid, and the day they have a doubt, they cannot tell you. Packing is protecting; labelling is informing and being able to trace back. This lesson goes from the cell to the box, sets the information a customer and an inspector expect, builds a simple batch number and shows how the day of 1,800 eggs is arranged into trays and boxes ready to leave.
What you will learn- ✓Choose and manage trays (pulp, plastic, new, reused) and boxes so that no egg cracks between the room and the customer
- ✓Fill, close and mark a box of 12 trays by the rules
- ✓Write a complete label: farm, Agnibilékrou, contact, lay date, batch, size, number, storage advice
- ✓Build a batch number that allows tracing back to the date, the house and the round
Lesson outline- Packing is protecting; labelling is informing
- Trays: pulp or plastic, new or reused
- The box of 12: fill, close, mark
- The label: what the customer and the inspector expect
- The batch number: six digits and a letter that say everything
- Worked example: the day of 1,800 eggs in trays and boxes
- The retail carton and the name on the carton
- Going further
Key points- •Cell = 1 egg; tray = 30; box = 12 trays = 360 eggs (about 22.5 kg); eggs for sale leave on new trays or washed plastic, never on returned trays.
- •Box: 12 complete trays, broad end up, interlocking, an upturned empty tray on top, no gap, closed without forcing, marked on two sides, stacks of 4 in the room and 3 in a vehicle.
- •Label: who (farm), where (Agnibilékrou, contact), when (lay date), what (size), how many (number), how (cool, away from sun and smells), plus the batch; common retail limit reference: 28 days after lay kept cool, shorter at ambient temperature; check the required information with the competent services.
- •Batch = YYMMDD-Hx (-Rx): one per house and per day, written on the tray, the box and the delivery note, with a batch register; it allows tracing back in ten minutes to all the sheets of the day.
- •Every evening: full-price eggs × distribution by size ÷ 30 = trays, ÷ 12 = boxes; that is what tells the seller what to promise and what to order in packaging.
13 min read · 5-question quiz
- 8Selling eggs: markets, shops, restaurants, subscriptions, and the brand that keeps customers
A layer does not stop on Sunday and does not produce more on the eve of a holiday. A house of 2,000 hens puts out 60 trays a day, 420 a week, 1,800 a month, whether there are customers or not. Selling eggs is therefore first of all solving a problem of regularity: placing the same quantity every week, with buyers who come back, without letting a tray grow old. This lesson reviews the sales channels with their strengths and pitfalls, builds a balanced customer portfolio for 420 trays, organises subscriptions, and shows what an egg brand is: three promises kept every week.
What you will learn- ✓Describe the egg sales channels (market, shops, restaurants, wholesalers, subscriptions, institutions) with their requirements and their share of your price
- ✓Build a customer portfolio that absorbs 420 trays a week without depending on a single buyer
- ✓Organise regularity: days, quantities, priorities when lay drops, solutions when it exceeds
- ✓Build an egg brand on three verifiable promises and handle a complaint so as to keep the customer
Lesson outline- The egg seller's problem: the same quantity, every week
- The channels: strengths, requirements, pitfalls
- Building the portfolio: 420 trays a week, nobody above 30%
- Keeping regularity: when lay drops, when it exceeds
- Subscriptions: 34 families, one Thursday, 50 trays
- The brand: three promises kept, and a complaint well handled
- Going further
Key points- •The egg is sold every day for a year: production is constant, demand is not; the seller follows the share sold within 7 days, the age of the oldest tray and the share of the first customer (< 30%).
- •Channels and share of your reference price (orders of magnitude): market 100%, shops and restaurants 85 to 95%, wholesalers 65 to 80%, institutions 80 to 90%, subscribers 110 to 130%; none must carry the farm alone.
- •For 400 trays a week: a wholesaler at 27%, a restaurant, six shops, two market days, 34 subscribers and a 5% reserve; an outlet every day of the week, calendar displayed.
- •Lay dropping: arbitrate in the fixed order and warn the day before; surplus: sell further, temporary offer in percentage, buyers who cook for trays near the limit, price cut last and never below cost.
- •The brand = fresh and dated, clean and whole, regular, kept every week; a complaint is handled by replacing, thanking, tracing the batch; never an unkeepable promise, never ill of others, never an invented price.
14 min read · 5-question quiz
- 9Field exercise: follow one day of collection, from nest to box, on the losses sheet
Everybody knows 'there is breakage'. Nobody, on most farms, knows **where**: in the nest, in the collector's arms, on the table, in the stack, in the box, on the motorbike? This exercise answers in one day. You follow the 1,800 eggs of an ordinary day, step by step, from the nest to arrival at the customer, and at each step you record what comes in, what goes out at full price and what is lost. At the end, a single page says at which step the farm loses the most, and therefore where to act first. It is the exercise every student of this specialisation does on their own farm, then does again a month later to measure progress.
What you will learn- ✓Cut the egg chain into seven measurable steps and know what is counted at each one
- ✓Prepare the equipment, the team and the losses sheet, and follow an ordinary day without changing it
- ✓Fill in the losses sheet with real counts and calculate the loss of each step in percent
- ✓Read the sheet as a cascade, name the step that loses the most, decide an action, and repeat the measurement a month later
Lesson outline- The goal: know where you lose, not how much
- Preparing: the equipment, the team, the day
- The losses sheet: the model to copy
- The day step by step
- The filled sheet: example on the house of 2,000 hens
- Reading the sheet as a cascade and deciding
- Your turn: the exercise on your farm
- Going further
Key points- •The losses sheet cuts the chain into seven steps (nest, collection and transport, grading, brushing, storage, packing, delivery) and counts at each what appears there: step loss = appeared ÷ in × 100.
- •You follow an ordinary day without changing anything, write at the moment of counting, an egg is counted only once, and nest cracks are separated from transport cracks with two marked trays.
- •On the example farm: nest 3.9%, transport 1.2%, grading 1.3%, brushing − 1.8% (gain), storage 2%, packing 0.6%, delivery 2%; the step that loses the most decides the first action.
- •The sheet is read as a cascade with three questions: which step loses the most, which is corrected by a simple movement, which masks the others (the hot room); three decisions at the bottom, including a free one for tomorrow.
- •The exercise is repeated a month later, same day, same team, and the two sheets are displayed; it is the work to hand in for the specialisation.
14 min read · 5-question quiz
- 10Case study: too many broken eggs and complaining customers, find where
A farmer from the Agnibilékrou area calls one March morning: 'Two shops have stopped taking my eggs, the restaurant says it finds ten cracked eggs per box and that the yolks are flat. Are my hens sick? Should I change feed?' He has 2,000 layers at 45 weeks, lay at 89%, and no sheet between the nest and the customer. This lesson takes up the technician's investigation, from the first phone call to the losses sheet, ranks the causes by weight, writes the correction plan in three stages, and says what should have been done before. It is the model exercise of this specialisation's exam.
What you will learn- ✓Sort customers' complaints into clues (cracked eggs, smells, flat yolks) and rule out false leads (sick hens, feed)
- ✓Conduct the investigation on the egg chain with the losses sheet and candling, in one day
- ✓Rank the causes by weight and write a correction plan in three stages: tomorrow, this week, this month
- ✓Say what should have been done before, and how to win back lost customers
Lesson outline- The situation and the complaints, as they arrive
- The investigation: what the technician sees, step by step
- The losses sheet of the investigation day
- The causes, ranked by weight
- The correction plan in three stages
- What should have been done before
- Going further: the exam and the certificate
Key points- •Complaints are clues: cracked → collection, stacks, transport, shell; flat yolks and watery white → storage (temperature, duration, order of exit); smells → wetted, washed, cracked or very old eggs. You touch neither the feed nor the hens before looking at the chain.
- •The investigation is done in one day with the losses sheet, candling of 50 eggs and the shape of the cracks (clean = knock, star = shell); here: 17% losses against 5 to 6% for a kept chain, and 22 clean cracks out of 31.
- •Causes by weight: hot storage without date or order, two collections, washing, stacks of 10 and motorbike at 14:00, grading without test or sheet, shell last.
- •Three-stage plan: tomorrow free (4 rounds, stacks of 6, no water, dates, first in first out, departure at 7:00, 3 boxes high), this week (new room, shell test, daily candling), this month (hire, ceiling, customer visits).
- •Before: replace the employee within the week, keep the grading sheet, write the rules on the wall, never store near the generator and the feed, read complaints as clues, do the losses sheet every quarter.
15 min read · 5-question quiz
Frequently asked questions
How long does a table egg keep?
It depends almost entirely on the temperature where it waits, much more than on the number of days. A clean, whole, unwashed egg keeps good quality for about 4 to 5 weeks in constant cold (4 to 7 °C), 7 to 14 days in a ventilated room in the shade at around 22 to 26 °C, 4 to 7 days in a room at 28-32 °C, and only 2 to 3 days above 32 °C. A useful rule: one day at 30 °C ages an egg like a week in the cold. The NEXTEKCI School (Agnibilékrou) teaches how to date every tray, take the oldest out first and set a maximum selling age according to the room temperature.
Should eggs be washed before selling them?
No, not on the farm. The shell is pierced by thousands of pores protected by the cuticle, a natural varnish deposited at lay. Water removes this cuticle, water colder than the egg draws the diluted dirt in through the pores, and an egg stored damp goes mouldy and picks up smells within days. Factories that wash do so with warmer water, approved products, immediate drying and an unbroken cold chain, conditions a farm does not have. The NEXTEKCI School rule is dry cleaning: a soft brush or very fine abrasive on the stain, within the hour; heavily dirty eggs are sold separately for cooking the same day. The customer can wash the egg just before cooking it.
How can you tell whether an egg is fresh?
The most reliable way is candling: in the dark, the egg placed on a box with a hole containing a lamp becomes transparent and you measure the air cell at the broad end. Up to 4 mm, the egg is extra fresh; 4 to 6 mm, fresh; 6 to 9 mm, to sell quickly; beyond 9 mm, it is old or was stored in the heat. The glass-of-water test says the same thing (a fresh egg stays lying at the bottom, an old one stands up or floats), but it wets the egg: it is reserved for the customer, just before cooking. The NEXTEKCI School teaches how to build a candler and check 50 eggs a day.
Why do so many of my eggs break?
Look first at the shape of the cracks. A straight, clean crack, or a clean hole on a hard egg, is a knock: collection too rare (eggs knock together in the nest), trays stacked too high, bucket or basin, forced box, loading in the sun, boxes five high on the motorbike. A star-shaped crack, with a shell that gives under the finger, is a thin shell: heat, feed, calcium, age of the flock. On most farms, knocks weigh twice as much as the shell. The NEXTEKCI School (Agnibilékrou) teaches the losses sheet: follow one day from nest to customer and count at each step, to know where to act first.
How many times a day should eggs be collected?
At least three times a day, four in hot weather or when cracked eggs exceed 2%, and never more than three hours between two rounds in the morning. A hen lays mostly in the six hours after lights-on: 70 to 80% of eggs are laid before 11 o'clock, and that is when nests overflow, eggs knock together, get soiled and heat up. A common schedule for lights at 5:30: 8:00, 10:30, 13:00 and 16:00, floor eggs collected first, nests closed after the last round. On the NEXTEKCI School example, going from two to four collections on 2,000 hens saved about 70 eggs a day for thirty more minutes of work.
What do the sizes S, M, L and XL mean?
They are the most widespread weight classes for table eggs: S (small) under 53 g, M (medium) from 53 to under 63 g, L (large) from 63 to under 73 g, XL (very large) from 73 g. Eggs are classed on a scale or with a balance-arm grading machine. A quick check: thirty eggs of 60 g weigh 1,800 g, and a tray sold 'large' must exceed 1,890 g net. Size increases with the age of the hen and varies with the protein actually eaten and with heat; a 30-week flock gives mostly M, a 50-week flock mostly L. The NEXTEKCI School teaches how to weigh ten trays a week before promising a size.
What should be written on an egg tray or box?
What a customer and an inspector reasonably expect: the name of the farm or brand, the locality and a contact, the lay date, the size or average weight, the number of eggs, storage advice (cool, away from sun and smells) and a batch number. The simplest batch is the date and the house, for example 260312-B1: in case of a complaint, it allows the collection, grading, control and room sheets of that day to be opened in ten minutes. The exact compulsory information depends on each country and on the sales channel; the NEXTEKCI School (Agnibilékrou) advises showing your label to the competent services before printing it for large retailers.
How do you sell eggs regularly, without letting any grow old?
By building a portfolio with several supports, like a roof: a wholesaler at a limited share, restaurants and shops delivered on a fixed day, one or two market days for the rest, and subscribers (families, offices) who receive dated eggs every week and pay the best price. Three figures are followed every week: the share of eggs sold within seven days, the age of the oldest tray in stock, and the share of the first customer, which should not exceed 30% of sales. When lay drops, you arbitrate in an order fixed in advance and warn the day before. The NEXTEKCI School also teaches the brand: three promises kept every week (fresh and dated, clean and whole, regular).
In conclusion
By the end, every egg laid reaches the customer in the state it left the nest: clean, whole, fresh, dated, and you know at which step every missing egg is lost, because you counted it on the losses sheet. Your customers come back for regularity, not only for price. The exam takes up a case of complaints to solve and awards the 'Table eggs: from nest to customer' specialisation certificate, issued privately by NEXTEKCI.
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