What came first: the egg or the chicken?
„What came first: the egg or the chicken?” is one of the oldest questions in the world. At TRANSAVIA farms, the answer is less philosophical and much more concrete: it all starts with an egg! Not any egg, but one that does not come from a chain of suppliers, but from the company’s own breeding farms; TRANSAVIA being the only producer in Romania that grows and processes only chicks originating from its own farms, with each stage of their life taking place within the same integrated system.
Before a baby pig reaches a rearing farm, the first few weeks of its life take place in a place that consumers never see: the incubation station. Here, time flows differently. For 21 days, every stage of development is carefully monitored: temperature, humidity, and ventilation are constantly controlled, and the eggs are turned automatically, just as they would naturally happen in a hen house. The difference is that in a modern incubation station, each parameter can be measured, monitored, and adjusted. In the TRANSAVIA incubation stations in Brașov and Sibiu, the process is organized so that each stage takes place in separate spaces, minimizing the risks of contamination and providing each batch with optimal conditions for development.
After 21 days, the hatching moment arrives, which does not occur simultaneously. For several hours, each baby follows its own rhythm, and the first gesture of its life is the same that any being does: it „cries” its entry into the world through that „piu-piu,” the sign that the journey begun three weeks earlier has ended successfully and that a new stage begins.
In the following hours, the calves are allowed to dry off and adapt to the new environment, then they are carefully evaluated by specialists before being transported to the rearing farms. Each step is planned so that the transition takes place as smoothly as possible, with as little stress for the calves as possible. Surprisingly, the first concern is not food! It is the environment in which they will live from their very first day. Before the chicks arrive at the farm, the barns are already prepared for them: they are cleaned and disinfected, the bedding is new, the temperature, light, ventilation and humidity are adjusted according to their age, and every detail is thought out so that the adaptation is as easy as possible. The chicken chicks cannot regulate their body temperature (410C) up to 14 days, and then we must ensure the optimal temperature. Basically, before the chicks arrive at the farm, the farm is already prepared to receive them. Only then comes the feed, which, in turn, begins its story long before the chicks’ first meal. In our own Combined Feed Plant, the TRANSAVIA specialists prepare the recipe formulated by nutritionists specifically for the first days of the chicks’ life. It is a feed created especially for this fragile beginning, with a nutritional intake adapted to the development of the digestive system, immune support, and the harmonious formation of muscle mass, providing the chicks with the nutrients they need in the first days after hatching.
From the outside, the first day of a baby’s life seems like a beginning. In reality, it is the result of three weeks of monitoring, technology, and care. And this is only the first chapter of the story. The next chapter is the longest and most important: the period when the baby grows up in an environment built around its well-being.
