EASTERN COAST BROILER
Healthy Chicken Meat.
Broiler Facts
International quality
standards
No use of hormones
Strict hygiene and
health practices
High farm Biosecurity
Our Detailed Process
Hatchery to farm
Chicks are transported from hatcheries to broiler farms, usually in ventilated plastic or cardboard boxes, using air-conditioned trucks specially designed for chick transport. Although the residual yolk sac in the chicks’ abdomen at hatching contains nutrients and moisture that can sustain them for up to 72 hours, it is important that they receive warmth, feed, and water within a reasonable time after hatching. The poultry houses are pre-prepared in advance with suitable brooding areas, optimal temperature and humidity levels, as well as with water and feed available.
Shedding
Broiler chickens are raised in large, enclosed poultry houses, commonly referred to as “sheds” or “houses.” The sizes of these houses vary, but a typical modern house is about 120 meters long and 12 meters wide, accommodating around 30,000 adult chickens. Larger houses with multi-tier cage systems can hold up to 80,000 broiler chickens. Often, a single farm consists of several houses grouped together, with each group containing about eight houses.
Poultry houses in East Coast farms are equipped with the latest global systems to provide an ideal environment suitable for raising chickens, maintaining proper temperature, relative humidity, and optimal oxygen levels according to the needs of each age stage. This is achieved through a ventilation system known as “tunnel ventilation.” Tunnel-ventilated houses have fans at one end that draw air through inlets at the opposite end, causing the air to flow over the chickens and exit the house at high speed. An electronic control panel equipped with three sensors for temperature and humidity allows for automatic adjustment of ventilation, heating, and cooling settings every five minutes.
Rearing the chickens
An insulating layer is spread on the floor—in the case of floor rearing, while in cages it is not used—made of clean bedding such as wood shavings, with a thickness ranging from 2 to 5 cm. After ensuring that the house is ready in terms of available water and feed and that the required temperature is set, one-day-old chicks are received to begin a new production cycle.
When the chicks arrive at the rearing farm, they are placed on the floor of the house, initially confined to an area ranging from one-half to one-third of the total house space (the “brooding area”). They are provided with the necessary heating—this phase is known as brooding and is referred to as the “brooder.” Additional feeding trays and water dispensers are provided in the brooding area, and the litter may be partially covered with paper to prevent feed loss and contamination with litter.
Broiler chickens are generally raised as mixed flocks, meaning both males and females together without separation. However, in some countries, the sexes are separated through sexing operations at the hatchery, with males raised separately from females, as males tend to have faster growth rates.
Harvesting the meat chickens
A percentage of chickens from most flocks are harvested in several stages. This process, also known as “partial depopulation,” “thinning,” or “multiple catch,” depends on the need for lighter or heavier birds. Thinning the houses provides more space for the remaining birds and helps lower the natural temperature inside the house. The first harvest may occur at around 26 days of age, and the last at 29–30 days, depending on the target weight, which is usually between 1400 g and 1600 g.
Chickens are often harvested at night when the weather is cooler and the birds are calmer. They are generally caught by contracted “catching crews” under low-light conditions to keep them quiet and easy to handle. Typically, they are caught manually and placed into specially designed plastic crates that provide good ventilation and protection from bruising during transport. These crates are handled using specialized forklift equipment and loaded onto trucks for transportation to slaughterhouses for processing.
Cleanout
When all birds are removed from the house (after about 30 days), it is cleaned and prepared for the next batch of chickens.
The new flock generally arrives within ten days to two weeks, allowing sufficient time to clean the house and prepare for the next batch. The interval between production cycles also helps reduce the risk of spreading common diseases, as many pathogens die during this downtime.
Workers carry out a complete cleaning after each production cycle. This includes removing the litter, sweeping the floors, cleaning feeding trays, water lines, all tools and equipment, and inspecting rodent traps.
High-pressure hoses are used to wash the entire house, and since the floors are made of smooth concrete, this makes cleaning easier and helps reduce the amount of water used.
After washing and once the house is dry, the first disinfectant is sprayed on all surfaces—equipment, ceilings, walls, and floors. After 24 hours, a second disinfectant is applied, followed by the placement of new bedding and the resetting of equipment.
Heating begins 24 hours before the arrival of the new chicks in summer and 48 hours in winter to reach the optimal temperature for receiving the new flock and starting a new production cycle.
Questions & Answers
Are Eastern Coast chickens kept in cages?
Eastern coast meat chickens are not kept in cages. They are raised in large sheds that are environmentally controlled.
Are chickens fed hormones in Eastern Coast?
Eastern coast chickens are not fed hormones. Nor are they administered hormones in any other way. Their rapid growth occurs naturally due to selective breeding and optimal nutrition. Independent tests by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, as part of the National Residue Survey, confirm that EASTREN COAST chicken meat is free of added hormones.
Why do many people wrongly believe that chickens are fed hormones?
We believe that one reason might be that people note that the chickens sold these days in supermarkets, butcher shops and chicken shops are much bigger than what they may recall them to have been 20 or 30 years ago. They may wrongly conclude that this must be the result of some unnatural intervention. The actual reason for this increased growth rate and size is the ongoing extensive selective breeding programs that have been adopted by the industry over the past 50 years, which aim for not only faster growing birds but also for healthier and more disease resistant chickens.
Are chickens genetically modified?
Chickens are not genetically engineered or modified. Improvements in their growth, feed conversion efficiency, tenderness and other characteristics are entirely due to traditional cross-breeding and selective breeding techniques.
Are chickens fed GM feed?
Soya bean meal, which provides an important source of protein and amino acids in the chicken Much of the world’s soya bean production is genetically modified and in countries such as the US, traditional soya bean meal becomes mixed with genetically modified meal during processing, storage and distribution. Non-GM soya bean meal can no longer be sourced in sufficient quantities to meet the poultry industry’s needs and thus feed is likely to contain GM soya bean meal.
Why do chickens grow so quickly?
Meat chickens, also known as broilers, have been selectively bred over the past 60 years for growth rate and to be highly efficient at transforming feed into meat This is why they reach their optimal market weight and quality much more quickly than the strains of chickens from which they were originally derived.
In this respect modern meat chickens are also quite different from egg chickens (or layers). Chickens used in egg farms are selectively bred for their capacity to produce eggs. For this reason, the meat chickens grow much more quickly and to a larger size than layers.
How do you know chicken is properly cooked?
Chicken should always be thoroughly cooked. While cooking to a temperature of 72 degrees should be sufficient, we recommend that, to be sure, you should cook chicken to about 82 degrees at its core. The amount of time you need to cook chicken of course depends upon the type of cut and how big it is, although a good rule of thumb is you cook it for about an hour per kilo. A simple way to get a good indication of whether it has been cooked enough is to stick a fork into the thickest part of the meat – the juice that comes out should be clear; furthermore there should be no pink colored meat left right through the thickest part.
Why is it important to cook chicken?
All raw meat and many other foods contain bacteria, and most are harmless. However, some of these bacteria, when ingested in sufficient quantities, can produce food poisoning. The good news is that all these organisms are very easily killed by normal cooking temperatures. Therefore, if you cook chicken properly and follow basic hygienic food handling practices in the kitchen then the risk is removed.
How many meat chickens are produced in Eastern Coast?
An annual total of about four million chickens are produced and processed for chicken meat. This equates to more than seven million kg of chicken meat.
How are antibiotics used?
Antibiotics are important to ensure the health of chickens. Only antibiotics approved by KSA regulatory authorities and administered in accordance with strict guidelines are used. For details on the industry’s antibiotics policy, The National Residue Survey undertaken annually by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry provides consumers with the assurance that no antibiotic residues are found in chicken meat.
What are the fine white stripes sometimes seen in chicken meat?
The fine white striations on chicken meat that can sometimes be seen running parallel to the regular muscle are sometimes referred to as “white striping”. White striping in chicken meat is seen worldwide. It is not a food safety issue, nor does it indicate a bird welfare issue. The condition results from the substitution of muscle tissue with connective tissue and some fatty deposits.
There are varying scientific opinions as to the cause of the condition, including most recently that the amino acid composition of the chicken diet can influence it. However, the causes of the condition are still being researched.