The Devonshire Red Chicken
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Hatchery
Lloyd Maunder has been served by the hatchery near Kentisbeare for almost 50 years. This is where all the chicks needed for the company's chicken production are hatched – around 500,000 per week.
The hatchery is now owned and run by PD Hook Ltd., the agricultural partner of Lloyd Maunder's parent company 2 Sisters Food Group.
The hatchery is supplied with fertilized Cobb (traditional meat breed for standard rearing) and Devonshire Red (Lloyd Maunder's own slow growing breed for higher welfare systems) eggs by nine dedicated brooder farms. One of these is organic, producing 25-30 per cent of the chicks needed to supply the company's organic farms – the highest rate of any poultry producer in the UK.
The hatchery has its own fleet of vehicles with state-of-the-art temperature control systems on board, to ensure fertilized eggs are transported from the brooder farms at exactly the right temperature for maximum hatchability.
A major expansion and refit in 1997 saw the hatchery installed with the latest fully automated setting equipment, which has helped it achieve the highest percentage of healthy chicks hatched in the UK. They're delivered by the hatchery to their respective farms as one day-old chicks.
The hatchery is managed by Mike Mitchell who has worked there since 1961.
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