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Dan Crozier on Grow Out

"...through cooperation and great commitment by our contract growers [we] have made great improvements in providing a better environment for our flocks..."

...read more below

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Maximizing Growth

Our most recent posting session showed bird health is better than ever.

...good job

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Outstanding Performance

Last year's livability was better than our yearly average!

...2008 Year End

Broiler Production 5628 FM 1116
Gonzales, TX 78629
(830) 437 - 5668

Bill Peterson - Vice President & Live Operations Manager
"As an employee of Holmes Foods, I can proudly say that Holmes Foods is committed to producing the highest quality of poultry products. This commitment is possible through our efforts of feeding highest quality of poultry feed, providing all of our poultry with state of the art housing, and following a strong animal welfare program. Holmes Foods will go into the future as a leader in the poultry industry using new and innovative management plans."

Dan Crozier - Grow Out/Live Haul Manager

Will Ruddock - Broiler Serviceman
Tony Alvarado - Broiler Serviceman
Rowdy Morrow - Broiler Serviceman

The broiler department is only one division of the live production department. Its responsibility is to monitor all aspects of producing broilers or chickens on contract farms to achieve high livability, growth rate and feed efficiency.

"The process of the grow out is to take day old baby chicks, which are delivered to the houses by the hatchery and make sure that the environment is proper for them in the houses and is conducive to them growing to a marketable size in a short period of time, which basically, right now, is about anywhere from 35 to 39 days."
- Dan Crozier, Grow-out/Broiler Manager

Service personnel visit the farms the day of placement to make sure the chicks will have the proper environment which supplies the needed supplemental heat, light, water, ventilation and feed. Ensuring the chicks have a good start is crucial. If the environment change is stressful it will greatly hinder the performance of the chick, thus preventing it to reach its full genetic potential. During the grow out of each flock field service personnel will visit the farm periodically. Walking through the houses, they watch for problems with the equipment, evaluate air quality and temperature and monitor management practices and bird health.

Ventilation is accomplished in a number of ways. In what is called conventional houses, curtains on the sidewalls of the houses are either opened or closed to adjust to the weather conditions. In the newest tunnel-style houses the curtains remain closed at all times, or there are solid side walls with no curtain. All ventilation is accomplished using exhaust fans to pull air through the house.

Water is supplied to the house through closed drinker systems known as nipple drinkers. These drinkers are mounted on piping systems which run the length of the house and are suspended on winching systems, so that the height can be easily adjusted to optimize intake of water by the birds. The enclosed system prevents contamination of water, thereby promoting good bird health. The controlled flow of the water provides plenty of water for consumption while limiting spillage. This keeps the floors of the houses as dry as possible which is important to bird health. Feed is available to the broiler throughout the house in automated feeding systems. The feeders are also suspended on winching systems to adjust to the growth of the birds and to enable feed lines to be raised to the ceiling. Raising the feeders is necessary to allow for loading of the broilers into cages for transport to the processing plant and to be able to clean out the house in preparation of the next flock. The feeding systems are monitored to make sure adequate feed is available without waste, since feed is the largest cost involved in producing broilers.

The broiler department is responsible for overseeing the placement of 640,000 to 675,000 chickens in houses on contract farms each week. Our service personnel visit farms to work with growers and to implement and monitor production practices, maintain bird health and efficiently grow the birds to market weight. This process supplies the plant with an estimated 2.7 million pounds of live birds to process each week.

Dan Crozier GROWOUT/LIVE HUAL MANAGER

"Over the past few years our company, through cooperation and great commitment by our contract growers have made great improvements in providing a better environment for our flocks by upgrading housing and equipment, and keeping abreast of new developments in production technology and production management. As of January 1, 2008, all houses on all farms are tunnel ventilated and equipped with environmental controllers to provide an optimum growing environment for the birds. These computerized control units constantly monitor temperature through sensors located throughout the house, increase and decrease ventilation as needed, and add supplemental heating and cooling if needed. The controllers ,also, monitor and record water consumption by the birds and create alarms in case of low water pressure or sudden increase in flow volume, which could indicate a broken pipe or spill that could flood the house. In addition, all houses and farms are equipped with automatically activated emergency power generators and alarm systems to alert responsible parties in the event of emergency or adverse conditions on a per house level. These systems are maintained and tested weekly to help insure the health, well being and productivity of our flocks."

Live Haul Department Bobby Burton - Catch Crew Supervisor
Daniel Burton - Live Haul Supervisor

The responsibility of the Live Haul Department is to load and transport live broilers to the processing plant. Monday through Friday of each week approximately 130,000 broilers weighing about four pounds apiece must be transported to the processing plant each day. A processing schedule is developed in advance of the birds reaching 34 - 39 days of age. Approximately eight hours prior to catching of the broilers the feed supply is shut off. Hopefully the feeder pans will be almost empty at the time they are raised to the ceiling. Excess feed in the pans will be wasted. As the cages are filled they are loaded onto trucks for transport to the processing plant. Holmes Foods catches all broilers by hand to prevent damage to both the animal's health and our product. By doing so, we insure safe handling, good animal welfare and uninjured, undamaged product. The actual catching and delivery of the birds must be coordinated to the speed of the processing plant. The goal is to supply the plant with an even flow of birds to be processed without having loaded trailers waiting for a prolonged period prior to processing. Loads waiting to be processed are held in a covered cooling facility which is equipped with fans to keep air moving across the broilers to minimize losses due to heat stress. The live haul department loads and delivers an estimated 130,000 broiler with an approximate live weight of 520,000 pounds to the processing plant each work day. The goal is to accomplish this in a timely manner, while minimizing losses due to mishandling and stress. The live haul process is an extremely important part of company operations.