EGG farming in Jamaica often sounds easy: just feed hens, collect eggs, and make a profit. But the reality paints a different picture.

Feed costs alone can gobble up to 70 per cent of revenue, according to the Jamaica Egg Farmers’ Association (JEFA) President Mark Campbell; this leaves farmers with razor-thin margins. But, investing even selectively in automation can tilt the odds. As one St Elizabeth egg farmer transitioning to automated feeders and conveyors explains, he’s transitioning not because he’s chasing flashy tech; it’s about making egg farming finally make sense.

“You [automated system] don’t use humans to feed the fowls, you don’t use humans to water the fowls, and you don’t use humans to pick up the eggs. You don’t use humans to clean the manure from the fowl house; the fowl house is as clean as your living room,” described Osbourne Bromley, an egg farmer, in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

His vision of an automated egg farm in Jamaica is already a reality in other parts of the world, and while he’s not fully there yet he sees it as a necessary step toward trimming costs and boosting production reliability. With over 60 000 birds, Bromley is now transitioning to a semi-automated system that uses conveyors to collect eggs and remove waste, as well as mechanised feeders and waterers to cut down on labour and improve efficiency.

“When the fowls lay where they are, it’s going to roll onto a conveyor belt, and that conveyor belt will take it to the point of collection,” he described.

While he has begun the journey, he made it clear that this will not be easily achieved by many others as integrating technology in farming is an expensive venture. And he sought to be real with new entrants in the industry because, before he came to this point, there were several hard-earned lessons — the first being that the perception it’s a fast and easy way to make money is a myth, which he sought to clear up by stating that the egg business has small profit margins.

“It’s totally wrong to think we’re making a lot of money,” Bromley said. “Volume speaks power. If you do volume and you have your market, that will work. But if you start with 50 chickens, like how I started, you’re not going to make any money.”

He began with just 50 birds in 1989. Today, his farm has the capacity for more than 60,000. Yet he’s quick to warn: Scale alone doesn’t equal success.

“You can have 60,000 birds and you’re only picking up 35,000 eggs,” he added.

Although he began with 50 birds 36 years ago, Bromley now advises aspiring egg farmers to start with 500 if they want to see meaningful returns. He, however, stressed that before investing in birds or machines, farmers must first secure a market. He told the Business Observer that some people just enter the business but have no plan, and by the time they are ready to sell the eggs they have nowhere to sell them to.

“If you don’t have a plan to market the eggs, you don’t have any plan at all,” he warned.

While costs vary, he estimates $900,000 just to purchase 500 ready-to-lay birds. Building a suitable coop will depend on land, materials, and design. To make these investments and have unsold eggs and no income is “a total disaster”. Bromley learnt much of what he knows through trial and error, mistakes he now urges others to avoid because mistakes can be expensive — such as building the wrong house for layers to thrive.

“The first mistake I made was building the house too low; it got too hot. Then, I put too many birds in a coop that couldn’t handle that capacity. When it’s overcrowded they don’t produce well,” he told the Business Observer.

When it comes to building chicken coops, size matters, and overcrowding is one of the quickest ways to stress out a flock and cut into egg production. Experts recommend giving each bird at least 1.5 square feet of floor space, with proper ventilation and layout to support healthy growth. To accommodate 100 layers, the house should be about 10 feet wide by 15 feet long. For 500 birds, options include a 15-by-50-foot structure or a 25-by-30-foot layout, according to the Hi-Pro Layer Management Handbook. The handbook provides detailed instructions on how coops should be built, from spacing and width to roof angle and ventilation. A properly designed house, Bromley emphasised, directly impacts production; for example, he uses sand on the floor of his chicken house, which helps to control odour and heat. Climate change is now the newest challenge among farmers. The birds require proper ventilation and stable temperatures to maintain productivity, and recent heatwaves have taken a toll on Bromley’s flock.

“Some breed a heat weh wi see passing! We never anticipate that,” he said with shock. “Because of it, if you had a house that was 10 feet high you’d probably go up to 15 feet when building another one, just to allow for better airflow.”

And while he’s not against innovation, he’s cautious. Although air conditioning and advanced climate controls are used in the broiler industry, he warns they aren’t financially viable for most egg farmers, given the thin profit margins. Making big investments in technology can send up the overhead costs of doing business, which might backfire, putting farmers out of business before they even start. Cutting costs, he says, is the biggest part of the business, and every year and a half or year and four months, farmers must replace the birds in order to be commercially viable as the birds fall off production volumes after that time.

“If you’re not saving out of the little profit you make to replace the birds, you’re going to be out of business in the first set of birds you put in,” he said.

These new challenges are being compounded with existing challenges such as the soaring cost of feed. After 36 years in the business Bromley believes no farmer should go it alone, and encourages potential egg farmers to seek guidance to begin smartly.

“Most of them [egg farmers] are not united,” he said. “They need to get in touch with the Egg Farmers Association and get guidance. There’s so much to learn, and every day you learn something new.”