The dry season arrives on schedule. Every year. In northern Cameroon, Nigeria, and the Sahel zone, the harmattan brings temperatures above 35°C from November through February. In southern Cameroon and…
A consumer picking up two trays of eggs at a market stall in Douala, Yaoundé, or Lagos does not read the feed formulation sheet. She cracks an egg. If the…
Feed accounts for 65–75% of the total variable cost of producing an egg. In a commercial layer operation producing 1 million eggs per year, a difference of 0.1 in feed…
Water is the first nutrient a layer hen consumes every morning and the last she consumes before the lights go out. It is the medium through which every metabolic reaction…
A commercial layer hen carries the genetic potential for 320–330 eggs in a 72-week laying cycle. Most flocks produce 270–290. The gap between genetic potential and actual production has many…
At Otto’s Farms, we track shell quality as a revenue metric, not a welfare indicator. A cracked shell is not just a compromised egg; it is a lost sale, a…
Every laying hen that produces 300+ eggs in a 52-week cycle started somewhere. She started in the first 48 hours of brooding — a window so biologically critical that mistakes…
An egg contains approximately 2.0–2.2 grams of calcium — almost all of it in the shell. A laying hen producing 300 eggs over a 52-week cycle deposits more than 600…
There is a precise moment in pullet production when the nutritional program must change — not gradually, not eventually, but on a defined timeline tied to the bird’s reproductive biology.…
A pullet that reaches the laying house without adequate immune protection is not a productive asset. She is a liability — one disease challenge away from a mortality event, a…
