Perdue adopts NestBorn on-farm hatching conceptPerdue adopts NestBorn on-farm hatching concept

Hatching day-old chicks in broiler barns instead of hatcheries means chicks have immediate access to feed and water.

Industry Release

January 22, 2025

3 Min Read
day-old yellow-feathered chicks
Peggy Greb/USDA

Perdue Farms announced that it will incorporate the NestBorn on-farm hatching concept into its broiler production and supply chain. The adoption of this innovative and future-proof approach to hatching day-old chicks in broiler barns – instead of in hatcheries – fits into the company’s belief in responsible food and agriculture and is aligned with its long-standing commitments towards animal care and “no antibiotics ever.”

In the summer of 2023, Perdue Foods put a demonstration NestBorn Egg Placing Machine into operation near its headquarters on the Delmarva peninsula in order to efficiently transfer larger volumes of pre-incubated hatching eggs into broiler barns. It was the first time one of Belgium-based NestBorn’s machines – which picks up candled and vaccinated eggs from setter trays in an automated and gentle way to then place those egg directly on the floor of a temperature-controlled broiler barn – was installed in the U.S.

The advantage of hatching directly on-farm is that access to feed and water is immediate, lowering the risk of hungry and thirsty chicks. Additionally, this approach eliminates hatchery handling and day-old chick transport, which avoids potential discomfort of the newly hatched chicks. Overall, the company said these “higher welfare hatching practices” will also translate into enhanced chick quality and health benefits.

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NestBorn is a family-owned company established in 2018 in Belgium. The idea for the NestBorn on-farm hatching system originates from the company’s second- and third-generation hatchery and poultry entrepreneurs.

After more than one year of demonstration and validation in a “deep litter” context, Perdue Farms and NestBorn have agreed, in a preferred partnership context, to further deploy the NestBorn on-farm hatching solution. In its first phase, two state-of-the-art NestBorn Egg Placing Machines – constructed and supported by automation expert Viscon – will be deployed in the U.S., which Perdue said will significantly increase the number of on-farm hatched chicks in its operations.

“In our mission to responsibly raise animals for food, we always are looking for continuous improvement of animal welfare,” said Bruce Stewart Brown, chief science officer for Perdue Farms. “A few years ago, we started to investigate the feasibility and potential benefit of on-farm hatching in our operations. We started taking pre-incubated eggs to broiler barns instead of using the hatcher. We concluded that NestBorn is an additional asset for our broiler operations that will help further our efforts around the highest animal care and in our commitment to no antibiotics ever.”

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With this being the company’s first expansion outside the European continent, NestBorn general manager Erik Hoeven noted, “Since the official launch of NestBorn in 2018, chicks have been hatched on-farm with our concept in more than 10 European countries. We are very pleased that we found a visionary poultry company in Perdue Farms, who helped us to fine-tune the equipment and methodology for the specific U.S. barn conditions. We hope that favoring the barns instead of the hatchers for the final two or three days of the hatching process can offer alternative solutions for Perdue in terms of future hatchery designs and investment strategies.”

Perdue Farms is a fourth-generation, family-owned, U.S. food and agriculture company. Perdue Foods consists of a premium protein portfolio, including the flagship PERDUE brand, Niman Ranch, Coleman Natural and Yummy, as well as the pet brands Full Moon and Spot Farms. Perdue AgriBusiness is a leading merchandiser, processor and exporter of agricultural products, the largest U.S. manufacturer of specialty, organic and non-GMO oils and one of the largest global suppliers of organic feed ingredients. Perdue does not use drugs for growth promotion in raising poultry and livestock and actively advances its animal welfare programs.

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NestBorn believes in “more-than-early-feeding” and “accessible and low-boundary on-farm hatching.” The concept of placing eggs directly on the floor and litter using a large-capacity mobile egg transferring machine originated within its research and development department in 2016 and 2017 and resulted in various worldwide patents for the NestBorn system and equipment.

NestBorn additionally makes remote and real-time monitoring devices for eggshell temperatures and barn conditions, all visualized on its monitoring platform. The company’s hatchery and broiler integrator customers are located in the U.K., Sweden, Norway, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany.

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