IS—Lancatter Farming, Saturday, Feb. 8. 1975 .
50,000
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hair and sometimes even on
the ground near the
chickens. Nor do the ladies
with chickens keep their egg
money, like my grand
mother did, in cracked
Mason jars.
Today, the ladies with the
chickens keep their money in
Chickens
the bank, and they have
white chickens. And they
don’t keep a small flock.
They might, in fact, keep as
many as 50,000 layers, like
Norma Frey.
Norma does tend 50,000
layers, and she does it single
handedly except for Craig
Frey, her husband's cousin
and hired hand, who helf»
her every day with the
packing chore.
Norma manages the triple
deck caged layer operation
for her brother, Donald,
owner of Hershey Equip
ment Co., in New Holland.
“This used to be a floor
house," Norma recalled
when Lancaster Farming
paid her a vidit one recent
morning. “Then we only had
12,000 layers. When we
switched over, a few months
ago, we brought in four times
as many birds, but the work
really takes just about the
same amount of time. And
it’s a lot easier." As she
spoke, Norma was working
at a table full of eggs, most of
which went all the way from
the chicken to the
refrigerated cooler without
once being touched by
human hands.
Every morning from 8:30
to 10:30, Nonna’s at the
packer, watching the eggs go
through at the rate of 50
cases per hour. In the af
ternoon, she’s there from
2:30 to 3:30 again, picking
out the cracks, watching for
trouble, keeping the machine
flowing smoothly. Under her
watchful eye, the
mechanical marvel packs up
to 40,000 eggs a day.
Conveyed gently from the
cages by a moving belt that
runs the length of the
building, the eggs go onto a
moving ladder to be lifted
one flight up onto the belt of
the packer. There, they’re
fed automatically onto
rollers, grasped gently by
metal fingers and placed into
flats. The flats leave the'
packer, go onto another belt,
where they’re stacked, by
hand, by Craig. The flats are
placed onto wheeled dollies
and moved into a cooled
storage room for pickup the
next morning by a driver
from Victor F. Weaver, Inc.
V
Norma Frey keeps a watchful eye laying house is a highly-automated
on the mechanical packer that unit built and owned by her brother
enables her to just about single- Donald Hershey, owner of Hershey
handedly care for 50,000 layers. The Equipment Co.. New Holland.
Before she got into the egg
business, Norma was a
secretary for an orthopedic
surgeon, and wore a white
uniform to work every day
for eight years. Then, three
years ago, she went to work
for her brother. “I grew up
on a farm, and my husband.
||r
Dave, is a farmer, and I just
like this work better than
being in an office all day,”
Norma said. “I’m here about
seven every day. I walk
through the cages to see if
anything’s wrong. I check
the water meters to see how
much the birds are drinking,
m ...
i
f
and get cet up for packing. I
like the schedule and being
on my own. My brother buys
the feed and the birds, and he
pays the bills, but I’m
responsible for the day-to
day operations.”
The Hershey layer
operation isn’t a one-of-a-
kind bi
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