Module 18

Careers in the Poultry Industry

By Dr. Jacquie Jacob, University of Kentucky
jacquie.jacob@uky.edu

The poultry industry is big business! There are lots of jobs working with poultry companies. There are also jobs with companies that supply products to the poultry industry (known as an ‘allied industry’). Gone is the day when thousands of small farms produced our chicken meat and eggs, our turkey for Thanksgiving, or the occasional duck or goose. Today large poultry companies produce most of the chicken meat, turkey meat, or chicken eggs sold in grocery stores.

While chicken meat is still produced on family farms, the chicken houses have thousands of chickens being taken care of together. The farmer raises the chickens for a company like Tyson or Perdue. The farmer has a contract that explains his responsibilities and the responsibilities of the company are. The company owns the chickens and feed, but the grower owns the land and the chicken house. The farmer gets paid based on the number of chickens he can raise to the right weight. The company has breeder flocks that produce the eggs that the meat chickens are hatched from. They also own the hatchery, where the eggs are incubated to produce the chicks that get raised for meat production. The company also has a large feed mill to mix the feed for the chickens raised on the different farms. The company also owns the buildings where the chickens are slaughtered and cleaned for sale. The company then sells the chicken produced, or they use the chicken to make chicken products like nuggets and chicken wings.

Within a chicken meat company, some of the job opportunities include:

• Manager for the breeder farms producing the hatching eggs

• Managers for the hatcheries producing the chicks that will be raised on the contract farms

• Managers for the feed mills fixing the feed for the chickens

• Buyers for the ingredients to be used to mix the feed

• Nutritionists tell the feed mill workers what amounts of the different feed ingredients they need to mix to get a good feed for the chickens

• Live production supervisors who help the farmers raise the chickens

• Managers for the slaughterhouse where the chickens are slaughtered and made ready for sale.

• Quality control managers to make sure that only the best chicken is being produced and ready for sale

• Manager of the buildings where they make the ‘further processed’ chicken like chicken nuggets or chicken bologna

• Business managers who hire the workers and make sure that they get paid on time

• Business managers who pay the bills and make sure the company gets paid for the chicken meat it sells

• Marketing managers for selling the chicken produced

Egg production in the United States is mainly on large farms. There can be a million or more hens on a single farm. The company owns the hens and collects the eggs for sale. The eggs can be cleaned and packaged for sale in grocery stores, or they can be sent to ‘breakers’ where they break open all the eggs to get the contents. This liquid egg can then be used in bakeries, restaurants, and companies building food products containing eggs, including ice-cream! The company owns farms that raise the pullets from chicks until they are ready to lay eggs, the farms with the laying hens, the feed mill, and the facility for cleaning and packaging the eggs for sale.

As with the chicken meat industry, the egg industry also hires a lot of different types of workers:

• Manager of the pullet farms

• Manager of the layer farms

• Manager of the egg processing facility

• Marketing managers for the sale of the eggs

• Quality control managers

• Feed mill manager

• Buyer for feed ingredients

• Nutritionist

• Business managers who hire the workers and make sure that they get paid on time

• Business managers who pay the bills and make sure the company gets paid for the chicken meat it sells

• Marketing managers for selling the chicken produced

All the companies need:

• Specialists to make sure that the activities do not hurt the environment.

• Job training professionals

• Computer programmers

• Food scientists that produce new products with the poultry meat or eggs that the companies produced

• Veterinarians to make sure that the chickens stay healthy

In addition, there are a lot of different companies that produce products that are used by the poultry companies – feed ingredients, equipment, medications, packaging material, etc. They also need geneticists that maintain the breeding stock, selecting breeders for improved growth rate or egg production.

Job opportunities in the poultry industry are worldwide. Many poultry companies have production in more than one country. If you are interested in working abroad, speaking a second language is very useful.

There are lots of opportunities to work with the poultry industry. There may be a spot for you!