Turkey hatchery holds open house

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 45 million turkeys are cooked and eaten in the U.S. at Thanksgiving.

“So this plant (Valley of the Moon) will produce five million more than the total United States consumption at Thanksgiving. That’s pretty amazing when you think about it,” said Clarke County Development Corporation Board President Wil Reisinger to a large crowd in attendance at Valley of the Moon Commercial Poult’s invitation-only open house and ribbon cutting ceremony Monday.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the new business was held seven months ago. Valley of the Moon President David Kenyon said the goal wouldn’t have been reached without collaboration and hard work of a “can do” community, construction team and personnel from the state and turkey industry.

“It wasn’t any one person who made this thing happen. It was a collaboration of a whole bunch of people to get this accomplished,” said Kenyon. “It was truly a team effort to pull this thing together.”

According to Valley of the Moon officials, the local facility will be the world’s largest turkey incubation and hatching facility – hatching 50 million turkeys a year. According to hatchery officials “with a budget of $17 million dollars, the facility was built with the highest standards for incubating, hatching and delivering turkey poults.”

Members of the community, as well as customers and others from the poultry industry were offered tours of the facility Monday to view the hatchery and learn about its custom-designed delivery fleet.

A representative from Congressman Steve King’s office was in attendance, as well as Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, House Rep. Joel Fry. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey were among special guests.

In addition to the open house, Valley of the Moon officials held informational sessions this week in four communities to seek out turkey rearing and laying farms.

Bio-secure facility

Kenyon said contractors are a couple of weeks away from making the facility completely bio-secured. Special measures had to be taken in order to achieve this security, he said.
Hatchery officials said the security is important to ensure poults are not exposed to pathogens and promote the delivery of healthy poults.

Some of the key features included in the bio-secure facility include shower-in/shower-out facilities for employees and truck drivers, a TSA compliant video monitoring system, hydrogen peroxide water treatment, in-house laundry facilities and high-pressure washing and disinfecting systems.

One hatchery feature

Another feature pointed out during the tour is the vaccination method of the poults. The turkeys will be vaccinated in the ova – or while still in the shell, through an Embrex innovoject system.

"I like it because it's less invasive than injecting that poult at (one) day of age," said Kenyon. "We've already done enough to that poult at day of age. Anything we can do while it's still in ova is a plus."
The eggs, which will be in incubator flats, will be conveyed by automation into an injection device, said Pete Shepherd Pfizer regional accounts manager for the poultry health division.

A sensor sees the flat and an injection cylinder pokes a small hole in the egg and drops a needle through the hole.
"The device actually delivering the vaccine never comes in contact with the outside shell," said Shepherd.

After each set of flats goes through the machine, air and a chlorine based solution sanitizes the components to prevent transferring any bacteria to the next flat of eggs, he said.
Other features in the 87,000-square-foot facility include a climate-controlled egg room, which has a 2.5 million egg holding capacity. The egg room is also equipped with egg grading, candling and a sanitizing system.

According to hatchery officials, "advanced air purification, ventilation, and building management systems enable precise control of the entire hatchery environment."
"This is a great addition. This is something to be really pleased about. I think we're all looking forward to the next phase – when Jason puts all the new employees to work and an even better stage when there are birds going out the door," said Northey. "We're looking forward to this being part of the turkey industry in the state for a long, long time."

For more information visit www.valleyofthemoonpoults.com.