Turkey – Decades of breeder experience, paired with an openness to new technology
Orallar Zirai's story is one of long experience meeting a genuine curiosity for what's next. Founded in 1996, the company has spent nearly three decades in breeder production, supplying hatching eggs and day-old chicks to export markets around the world. At its Kızılkuyu farm, that work happens at scale: 130,000 birds across 10 poultry houses, served by a central egg room and administrative buildings.
At a site this size, the fundamentals, egg quality, reliable collection, and day-to-day control are what keep production predictable. We visited the farm to hear how the team manages them, speaking with Atakan Güzelalp, Assistant Production Manager, and İbrahim Hıdıroğlu, Breeder Farm Production Manager, who together bring more than twenty years of experience at Orallar Zirai.
"Reducing cracked and broken eggs, keeping the dirty-egg rate low, and keeping floor eggs low is what matters to us in a nest"
For a breeder farm, egg quality is decided long before the egg room. It begins with where, and how, the birds lay.
That thinking is what drew the team to the Van Gent nest. Its wooden cells are simply more inviting to the flock, and Orallar Zirai - a company that describes itself as open to new technology - expected the birds to respond. They did.
"Because the nest cells are largely made of wood, the birds choose them more often," Atakan says. The numbers back it up: floor eggs drop below 2% at peak production and sit at around 4% as the flock ages.
Good laying is only the first step; the eggs still have to travel. With production spread across 10 houses, Orallar Zirai relies on the Vencobelt conveyor to bring everything together.
"To get our eggs to the store, we needed a conveyor," Atakan says. "Vencobelt carries them from the houses to the egg room, and from there we feed them into the Prinzen machine for packing."
The result is a steadier, more organized flow and far less manual handling along the way.
“Before Meggsius, when we collected by conveyor, we had no idea how many eggs came from which house,”
İbrahim recalls. "We couldn't see the yield we were reaching in each one."
Meggsius Count & Control closed that gap. Cameras positioned above the nests now read the eggs coming from the left and right sides of each house in real time, giving the team house-level insight with close to 99% accuracy.
"We can see which side of the nest has a problem and step in immediately," İbrahim says. What was once a guess is now a live picture of the whole farm.
"Meggsius Count & Control starts collecting on its own during the break, so we dropped the shift system. We collect our eggs comfortably within working hours."
That visibility changed more than reporting — it reshaped how the team works. Egg collection used to run on a staggered-break system, with staff rotating lunch so the line never stopped. Now it runs itself.
At this volume, that kind of automation isn't a nice-to-have. "Our capacity here is so high that collecting by hand would be very difficult," İbrahim adds. With the conveyor feeding the Prinzen machine under Meggsius's control, the farm sets its hatching eggs at high capacity without the strain that manual handling would bring.
None of this was a leap into the unknown. Orallar Zirai had worked with Vencomatic Group and its Turkish distributor, Avimak, on earlier projects, and that familiarity made the latest investment straightforward. The team handled installation itself, with its own equipment crew working alongside a Vencomatic supervisor.
"The installation is quite simple," İbrahim says, "and Avimak gave us strong support afterwards."
Put together — Van Gent nests, Vencobelt, Meggsius Count & Control, and Prinzen automation — the pieces add up to more than a set of upgrades. Orallar Zirai now runs a breeder operation it can actually see: house by house, side by side, egg by egg. For a company nearly thirty years into the business, it's proof that experience and innovation aren't opposites — they're what keep a farm moving forward.