Lesson 3: Handling and Candling Eggs

Weeks 7-9 were my favorite weeks for my 398 Experience as the theme of this Lesson (#3) was all about the eggs. As we got to class we were told that what we did today in class was what employees did at the farms for the afternoon shift. I took note of this as this lesson would give a lot of insight to what and how things are done in this facility and how poultry farm operations occur in Illinois.

To start the day, Chet and the farm manager Doug walked us to the 'Breeder House' where chickens, both hens and roosters, are put into a large room to copulate and produce expensive, extra-special, and fertilized eggs that can be used to make more generations of the same genetic line. When we circled up in the room outside of the rooms these chickens were held in, Chet explained to the class that we should be accustomed to the area that these chickens reside in so collecting eggs should not be too difficult. He went on to say that the Colombian chickens (all white) are very flighty and tend to lay on their eggs in bunches so picking up and moving chickens may need to occur to collect their eggs. Moreover, Chet stated that we need to keep an eye out for the roosters as they can be very protective of their females. Finally, Chet explained that after collecting the eggs, a chicken farmer will count the total, record that number on a sheet with egg totals for the day, then label a couple of the eggs so that eggs do not get mixed up during the sorting process. With that, he divided the class up into 4 separate groups, handing each group a basket, and sent the groups on their way. All groups had a relatively easy time collecting the eggs except in the cross-bred flock where 1-2 students each week were kicked by the spurs of the roosters in this pen/room. Those roosters sure loved their women.

Following the breeder house, Doug and Chet led us back to the cage house where we were taught how to properly clean and store eggs. Chelsie Parr, the graduate researcher and manager of the poultry farms, explained to the class the process of cleaning and handling eggs at this point. First, eggs are 'belled' which done by taking two eggs and gently tapping the small, pointy-ish ends of the eggs together. If the shell quality is good (not thin) then the sound produced would be that of a bell, like a 'tink-tink-tink' sound. If the shell quality is poor (thin) then a dull sound will be produced and in the event of this unique sound, you must keep tapping them together, with a little more force, until the egg with the thin shell breaks open. The thick-shelled egg then gets cleaned which is done by removing any dirt, bird poop, or feed from the eggs by using a small scrubber. Once the egg(s) is/are clean, they are placed into an eggs flat, with the points facing down, and then move on to the next egg.

Now, it is important to explain why eggs are not cleaned with soap and water, and as well as why eggs are placed pointed-end down. First, eggs cannot be clean with soap and water because an egg shell is highly porous and any dirt that is on the shell will dissolve with the water and then be absorbed into the egg. This is proven very well when eggs are specific density tested in salt water. If one were to crack open and eat one of these eggs that have been specific density tested, one would find it to be extremely salty tasting. Second, eggs are pointed face-down so that the air cell in the egg is able to expand as it has more room to do so on the opposite, larger end of the egg.

After cleaning, the eggs, now in the flats, are taken into the cooler room where they are placed into their respective boxes to be cooled and stored overnight. Moreover, because these eggs are from the breeder flock, chicken farmers turn these fertile eggs over so they do not set/prepare to incubate and keeping the eggs moving is a great way to prevent this from occurring. After Chet explained this, Dr. Parsons educated the class on the differences between a fertile and infertile egg. Dr. Parsons grabbed two eggs, cracked them open, and pointed out a small white spot in the middle of the yolks of each egg. He said that this was called the 'germ cell' and an infertile egg will have a small, white dot in the middle of the yolk whereas a fertile egg will have a larger white dot that is slightly cloudy.

Following this demonstration, Dr. Parsons proceeded to break open a double-yolk egg (very large egg). He told the class that this happens rarely in single birds, but do to the large flock at the poultry farms, it is a regular occurrence. He further explained that eggs like these usually do not hatch even though books state that it is possible to grow this egg and have both birds survive. Dr. Parsons told the class that the book may be right in theory, however, what usually happens is one chick out-competes the other embryo and takes over the egg. Lastly, Dr. Parsons showed us the odd and misshapen eggs that would not go to market. These eggs varied in size, shell quality, and weird appendages, but most were very obvious as to why they would not sell; they were gross and not something people would pay money for to eat.



Next, the class was brought to the chick lab to look at embryological issues in hatching chicks, as well as how to candle an egg. Students gathered around two large, rectangular tables and two very large crates were removed from the incubator and placed on each table. In these crates were day old chicks that had just been hatched and needed to be sorted. Pam Utterback now took over and explained that the proper way to sort any chick is to vent them (express their anus) and used a magnifying glass to spot whether or not there is another hole. If there is one, then that chick would be female as they have another hole used to produce the egg. Fortunately for the class, this difficult procedure was easily avoided as the chicks being sorted were sex-linked and were genetically reproduced to be able to sort them by the color of their feathers. The males were a light and bright yellow whereas the females were a dark yellow. Moreover, Pam showed us that the females, as with most species, grow faster when young and thus have larger/longer feathers on their wings as compared to the males who do not have these longer, adult-like feathers.

Once the chicks were sorted by color, they were removed and replaced with a large, wooden box. Pam then brought out a couple flats of eggs and placed them onto trays that were set on top of this wooden box. Inside this box was a light, and when this box was plugged in, mass candling eggs could occur. Pam turned the box on and told the class that they were to look for poor-quality eggs which were those that glowed red/were lighter. The reddish tinge to the eggs means that these eggs did not set correctly, and thus have nothing growing inside of them. The darker eggs mean the opposite, and because this lab students were cracking open the reddish tinged eggs, making a mistake here means students could potentially open up a fertilized, and growing egg with a live chick inside.

After the eggs were sorted and candled, more flats of eggs were brought out along with eight glass pyrex dishes. Students were now instructed to break open all of these eggs and to look for anything special such as blood spots, aborted chicks (chicks that had a problem occur during the incubation/growing period), as well as mutated chicks (chicks with multiple appendages, cross-beaks, or other deformities). When I took this class a year ago, my class found lots of mutated chicks, however, this year, all three groups I assisted teaching found only two mutations: A brain out (self-explanatory) and a chick with four feet.

Following this uneventful egg breaking, Chet ended the day/lesson by showing us his collection of weird things that have come from this part of the lab. He had chicks with brains out, guts out, multiple feet, completely crossed beaks, and tons of other things. Personally, I thought the coolest thing he had collected over the years was the double-headed chick. Chet explained that this is extremely rare and would have been even more rare if it hatched. His famous last words of that day were, "Man, if this chick would have hatched I would have been a millionaire and would not be working here anymore."

Lesson 4: Shell and Egg Quality Tests

This lesson covered the final three weeks of this class and it covered how chicken farmers and researchers alike would test a small population of their eggs to see how their overall population is doing. The tests that were performed in this lesson were specific gravity and Haugh units. Also, this lesson went deeper into candling and showed how eggs can be closely looked at and be identified for problems internally.

To start the day off, students met up at the chick lab but were immediately moved to the specialized research facility to look closer at eggs via candling. Students were set up around a large rectangular table and were given 6-8 eggs each all with different peculiarities and problems. The candling process then occurred and this is done by turning off all the lights in a room and holding each egg up to a light. The problems students noticed were commonly blood spots, blood rings, and thick, dark yolks, both of which indicate a poor quality egg. However, some problems with eggs were more different than normal such as a band around the shell of an egg as well as a non-moving yolk. The band around the shell indicates that when the egg was being coated, it was pushed forward a little bit too quickly resulting in a weak coating around this area. The immobilized yolk was a little more difficult to notice, but this is a very common issue with older, bad eggs.

After candling, students were brought to the main room in the specialized research facility and were split into two groups: 1 group for Haugh units and another for Specific gravity.


Beginning with the test I did not fail when I took the class, specific gravity tests for the density and shell quality of an egg. Chelsie lead this demonstration and told the group that they were going to be using half of a flat from pullets (less than a year-old, female chickens) and half of a flat from old chickens so that comparisons and conclusions can be drawn from the difference in age and egg quality between the two. The specific gravity test occurs as such: Eggs in basket are placed into different salt-water density buckets and eggs that float are removed while eggs that sink stay in the basket. Here, students were divided into two groups again and were given either young or old eggs. Students then went from bucket removing the floating eggs and placing said eggs on the flats below the buckets. This continued until the last bucket (1.096 density) was reached and all the eggs were removed from the basket. Chelsie then charted out the egg densities and noted that the older eggs tended to be of poorer quality (less than 1.076) and thus had lower specific densities whereas the young eggs were of higher quality (around 1.080) and thus had higher specific densities.

On the other side of the room, Dr. Parsons and I led the Haugh Unit testing which is a way to measure interior egg quality as well as shell quality. Students were lined up and handed one old egg, each. They then took the egg and broke it over a plate of glass. Next, they used the "Haugh Meter" which is used to asses the quality of the egg by testing the thickness of an eggs albumin, specifically the thick albumin. The thick albumin is the clear part of the egg surrounding the yolk that does not spread out (unlike the thin albumin that does spread out) after being cracked. Due to the fact that the students were dealing with old eggs, a majority of the eggs were of low quality and had thick albumin that spread out a lot and thus readings received were of very low-quality (less than 70 units). However, every now and then there was one durable egg that retained its thick albumin entirely and was of high quality (75-100 units).

Following this, the second part of the Haugh test is to check shell thickness. Students squeegeed their eggs off of the glass, and then came up to me where I held the egg-shell thickness measuring device. Students broke off small piece of the egg shell and set it between this device so that it pinched the shell between the scale and a small, metal pole. A good shell-quality would show units about 15, and a majority of these eggs did have good shell quality. This makes sense as an egg shell will not deteriorate over a month or two, however, the inside of an egg will deteriorate almost of it is perishable.

The final part of this lesson was more of a fun-fact type thing and this was led by Dr. Parsons. He showed the class the many different egg containers, and label appeal that have been produced over the years. The funniest thing that he showed us was what also frustrated him most and that was the 8-egg egg-carton. Almost 100% of produced eggs in the world are put into either a multiple of a dozen or a half-dozen egg carton. Albeit, some mad-man in the world thought of this 'genius' idea to produce an 8-egg egg-carton. This frustrates Dr. Parson as well as most chicken farmers as this egg-carton does not fit into conventional egg pallets and boxes and thus creates extra difficulties with shipping and handling. 

The last thing Dr. Parsons showed us was the labels some companies made so that they could create appeal in a specific market. A lot of companies made labels that stated their eggs were 'organically' made, or that their chickens were grown 'cage-free' and allowed to roam outside. Chet could not handle this and came in on Dr. Parsons lesson and stated that 'cage-free' is defined as "A chicken having access to the outdoors" but that does not mean it has to be outside, it only has to have access. This is important, Chet explained as a majority of chickens do not like being outside where its windy, cold, and wet and, 'They would much rather be inside where its the temperature is controlled and food and water is always available.'

Overall, this class was very educational and experience that was so amazing that I now work at the poultry farms myself. I am learning so much about the poultry industry and am amazed at the work done by Dr. Parsons and Chet Utterback that I may change my plans for the future. Both the chicken and the egg are absolutely amazing creatures and food products, respectively, and honestly, to me, it does not matter which came first as they both are awesome.

Lesson 2: Culled Chickens and Vaccinations

Weeks 4-6 of my 398 experience the class were instructed by Chet "The Chicken-Man" once again and he discussed what exactly is a cull in a flock of chickens and how to properly vaccinate chickens. In the first half of this lesson we learned about what types of vaccinations are given to the birds at the UIUC poultry farms, how to properly vaccinate a chicken, as well as how to test for disease/if a vaccination was responded to correctly - all of this occurred in the cage-house. The second half of this lesson we dissected looked inside a 1-3 day old chick, a week-old chick, and an out-of-production/culled/mature chicken - all of which occurred in the specialized research facility. We also learned proper euthanasia techniques with emphasis on proper cervical dislocation technique.


"One problem chicken is enough to take out an entire flock of birds," Chet said at the beginning of class. Without proper maintenance (cleaning, feeding, etc) and up-to-date vaccinations that could mean a loss of revenue and in turn, the loss of a job. At the UIUC poultry farms, all birds in Chet's flock are up-to-date on vaccines and are given feed and water easily through the use of mechanized system using feed and water lines that are installed through the cage system.

Now, because all of the birds at these farms have already been vaccinated, Chet taught us how to properly vaccinate a chicken by demonstrating the same methods he would use to vaccinate a chicken, but through the use of a blue-dye (the mixing agent for real vaccine that has no actual effect) instead of a live vaccine. First,
he laid out a table with a handbook of all vaccinations required by the government, a stabber (a small tool with two, long, and of medium size metal rods with metal pointy ends, both of which had wells in the middle of them) and a pricker (a sharp small rod for puncturing chicken veins to release blood with a loop at the opposite end to collect it). Next, he took the stabber, dipped it into the loading dye and tapped it against the edge of the bottle to remove excess dye. Chet paused here to explain the importance behind tapping the stabber: Each vaccine is expense and comes in limited supply, so using this technique will maximize the amount of birds you can vaccine. Then, he took a chicken, spread one of its wings out and punctured its wing web (the same place where chickens are wing-banded) with the stabber and then immediately removed it. "There's one vaccinated chicken," he said to the class as he spread the wing out to show a medium-size blue circle that appeared around the stab-wound.

Following fake-vaccinations, Chet showed the class how to perform a Pullorum test. The way this is done is through the use of a Pullorum test "kit" which is a box containing a light inside of it with a plastic grid on top. Chet took another dye, this time purple in color, and placed a single drop on each of the tiles on the grid. The test is done by taking a loop of blood from a chicken using the 'pricker' tool and mixing it together with this purple dye. Chet then explained to the class that a chicken can show positive for Pullorum in one of two ways: 1-A false-positive which is when the blood coagulates but because the birds have been vaccinated for it, not because they are sick from it, and 2- A true-positive which shows up the exact same, but the history of the bird does not show vaccinations for Pullorum. A negative for Pullorum, which will be the most common for vaccinated chickens, will not coagulate and remain nearly the same shade of purple.

Students were then instructed to retrieve a chicken from the cages and return to the area to begin fake administration of vaccines as well as perform Pullorum testings. After each student successfully did each of these things, we all moved to the specialized laboratory to dissect different aged chicks and chickens.

The first thing we all noticed when we walked in and circled-up was three very sickly looking chickens sitting on the floor. Pam Utterback, Chet's wife, led the discussion of this dissection section as well as the introduction to this section which regarding proper techniques to euthanize chickens. Pam explained that there were 3 types of euthanasia that the farms practiced: Carbon Dioxide gassing, electrocution, and cervical dislocation. The first two are commonly used to cull groups of chickens, so the technique that the class was going to be taught how to use was cervical dislocation. Pam stated that she was certified to teach anyone how to do perform this procedure so if anyone wanted to volunteer and practice on a dead-bird they were more than welcome to. Chet jumped in and stated that if anyone was timid that they should think of it like this, "Would you like to have the air removed from the space around you, have electricity run through your body at an extremely high voltage, OR have a ninja come and karate-chop you in the neck so that you die instantly?" Out of the 3-classes I assisted in, only 1 of the classes had students brave enough to attempt this procedure after Chet's encouraging speech.

Following the euthanasia of these 3 cull of the flock, all the students circled around a large table and then Pam placed 1-day old and 3-day old chicks in front of each student. These chicks were chosen to demonstrate how chicks are able to live through being shipped across countries (about 3 days) without being fed any food or water. This is due to the fact that chicks retain something called the 'yolk sac' inside them as a nutrient source. On the day 1 chicks the sac is very large, however, on the day 3 chick the sac has almost entirely disappeared. Following these chicks, the each student in the class was given an adult culled chicken. We dissected each chicken  to see both the general outline/picture of a chickens digestive system, as well as
potential reasons behind why they died.

A majority of the chickens that were culled had been used for ovarian cancer research and their cause of death was because of ovarian cancer. Inside of them, we were shown their ovaries and almost all of them had developed uterine or ovarian cysts on their ovaries. Compared to normal ovaries, cancerous ovaries look cauliflower like and cause the chickens problems with producing eggs as these ovaries are now more/fully obstructed and disease ridden.Following dissection of hens, Pam dissected a rooster and showed us the difference in physique, disease, and sex structure of the male and female chicken. The only big differences noted were that the roosters tended to have more meat (which makes sense as they will grow bigger then hens) and the size of the testicles compared to the size of the ovaries.

After dissection, Chet showed us his collection of weird things he has collected over the years from these multiple dissections. A lot of the things he collected were unusual ovarian cysts and odd, un-coated eggs, but the one that stood out most to me was something that could be collected after every dissection and that was of the brain compared to the chickens eyes. I was amazed to see that the brain was smaller than one of the chicken's eyes, absolutely incredible.

Lesson 1: Wingbanding and Catching

This lesson was taught by Chet, the Senior Agriculture Research Technician at the UIUC Poultry Farms. Due to the way he teachers, I think I learned a lot more as an assistant compared to when I was student taking the class. We began by chick wing-banding, learning proper technique and methods, then moved on to catching chickens. With catching chickens, I learned about the four different kinds of birds the Poultry Farm has there, how to wing-tie a chicken, and some common practices among poultry farmers.


Wing-banding new chicks is the most common and efficient way of tagging and keeping tack of newborn livestock. There was a multitude of different types of wing-bands from bar-coded ones to curl-locking wing-bands, but the ones these farms used were the basic numbered bands with a piercing point that had a fold over tab to secure the band, as well as expose the number.


Chicks are usually wing-banded within the first 2-4 days after being born.  The longer a poultry farmer waits, the more pain the chicken will feel and remember.  The first thing I noticed when Wing-banding chicks was how to hold it. The newborn chicks are tiny, so spreading their wings out and holding them firmly, but gently, is the plan of action one needs to take to properly wing-band them.  After spreading the wing out that is to be banded, puncturing the flap of skin is quick, easy, and relatively harmless to the chick. The chicks may chirp a bit, but Chet explains that this is not from the wing-banding; they simply are away from the rest of the group, and this causes them to make noise.  The band itself does not hurt the chick as the band is attached at a web of fibers that have little to no nerves there. After piercing the web of skin, the next and final step is to bend the tab over the pointy-end. It is important to make sure that the numbers are not covered by the flap otherwise that defeats the purpose of the band!

Other ways to identify newborn poultry livestock are by leg-banding or spur-shaving, however, both are impractical.  Poultry are very curious creatures so if a farmer were to leg-band their birds, it is most likely that the bird will pick at it until it comes off. More so, as the chickens grow, they will also outgrow the leg bands.  This means that they would need to be replaced with age which means more time and more money. Also, spur-shaving is a common way to identify newborns, but this is time-consuming and is definitely more painful than a wing-band.


After wing-banding, I was led into another unit of the facility to be taught how to catch the birds, specifically White leghorns. Using a tool called the fowl-catcher, I successfully caught many birds easily.  What this tool does is it catches a chicken by its leg and because their legs bend forward (and not backwards like ours) their leg gets stuck.  From there, I lifted it up and grabbed it by both of its legs.  I was then told that the proper way to hold a chicken is by splitting my fingers into a live-long-and-prosper sign, then sliding that along the chicken's stomach.  This allowed me to hold both of the chicken's feet as well as support its entire weight in my hand.


When catching the white leghorns Chet explained that these birds are bigger, so they are less flighty and more calm in the presence of humans. The white leghorn is only one of hundreds of breeds in existence, and one of many that lays white eggs and has pink ears/skin. Also, the white leghorn is predominantly used as layer chickens as opposed to a meat producing broiler. When trying to catch the white Plymouth rocks Chet told us that these birds are smaller, so they are more agile.  This meant when trying to cull them (catch them with a cull hook) we would have to be quicker and more accurate when trying to pick them up as they will react faster, try to escape, and will not wait around for you to catch them. The Plymouth Rock chicken is a dual-purpose chicken that grows well to produce both eggs and meat. Unlike the White Leghorn, Plymouth Rocks have yellow ears/skin and produce brown eggs. The other two bird species that were discussed in little detail were the Cross-Ex (CX) birds and the New Hampshire (NH) birds; both lay brown eggs. The difference in the color of egg produced is unknown, but there are many ways to tell what color egg a bird will produce just by looking at its physical characteristics.

White Leghorn

For the two types of poultry we were catching (not NH or CX), their skin/ear (easier to see ear color than skin) color reveals what color egg they will lay (pink ears = white eggs, yellow ears = brown eggs). Moreover, you can also tell whether or not a bird is in-production or out-of-production by taking a look at other physical characteristics.  Some characteristics are their legs/feet, vent (end portion of their vagina), and comb. For a chicken's feet/legs, if they lack pigmentation or are a faint yellow they are likely in-production. The opposite also holds true; if their legs/feet are yellow then they are most likely out of production. The reason behind this is where their nutrients are being directed.  In-production birds use their resources to supply the egg with a yolk-sack, whereas out-of-production birds retain all the nutrients they consumed in their feed, thus giving pigment to their skin. Out-of-production birds do not produce eggs so they are sent to the market and are used for meat when this time comes. Now, when looking at the vent of a chicken, an in-production bird will have a wet/moist vent.  If it is dry, they are out-of-production.  When looking at a chicken's comb, an in-production bird will have a deep-red and very vascular comb; an out-of-production chicken will have a comb that is a lack-luster red/light pink, nearly white.

At the end of the lesson, we were taken to the cage-house where Chet discussed the experiments and tests the farm was running.  The test that Chet went into great detail about regarded Ovarian Cancer.  The chicken is the model for Ovarian Cancer as a chicken cycles once a day (because they lay one egg a day, until they molt). He discussed that they have finally found a marker in the blood that can detect whether or not a woman will expect to have a form ovarian cancer, and what treatments she should begin to prevent full-on ovarian cancer. Lastly, flax seed plays an enormous role in the prevention of Ovarian cancer. A study conducted at these farms showed that out of 20 birds given flax seed in their diet, 19 of the birds had no signs of ovarian cancer.  Of the 20 birds not given flax seed in their diet, over 90% of them developed ovarian cancer. And as Chet says, although he does not have Ovaries, he consumes flax seed every day, just in case.