Okanagan Chick Hatchery
Armstrong, British Columbia
As one of the largest chick hatchery and processing centers in the Okanagan valley, this facility was designed to hatch 17 million healthy chicks per year from fertilized eggs provided by others. The process systems include eighteen incubators and six hatchers, as well as automated sorting, cleaning and handling systems. The facility’s requirements include high volumes of outside air, precision temperature and air pressure controls, humidity control, upgraded air filtration, and attention to infection control protocols.
Falcon Engineering provided mechanical and electrical engineering services for this facility. Our design staff worked with equipment manufacturers to provide specialized custom control sequences to meet the tight climate and pressure control parameters. Mechanical services were coordinated with process equipment suppliers to ensure they would provide seamless and consistent operation. As the mechanical and electrical systems were considered mission critical, redundant systems, critical spares, and safe failure modes were an important part of the design.
Throughout construction our contract administration staff worked closely with the owners and contractors to make sure the project, which had an ambitious timeline, continued to progress unhindered. As a result of this effort, the first batch of chicks was reported as the highest yield to date from the owner’s fleet of hatchery buildings across western Canada.