Gage County
1115 West Scott St.
Beatrice NE 68310
Phone: (402) 223-1384
FAX: (402) 223-1370

News Column

Paul C Hay, Extension Educator

Nebraska Poultry Production

Nebraska is the corn and beef state. The farm poultry flocks are almost gone and Saturday nights are no longer set-aside for cream and egg delivery. Yet quietly Nebraska's poultry industry is a steady and growing force in the state's economy. Let's take a quick look at egg production, turkey production, and broiler production in Nebraska..

Nebraska has the two largest egg processing companies in the United States. Waldbaum farms is located in the Northeast Nebraska town of Wakefield, not too far from where my grandmother grew up. They raise layer hens for egg production near Wakefield, near Bloomfield, Nebraska, at a large Iowa complex, and also have a million birds under contract with farmer growers. Those million birds are all produced in Gage and Jefferson County. These three farmers produce many times the number of eggs that were brought to Beatrice Foods Creamery.

Nearly all the Waldbaum eggs are processed in egg products used in the restaurant trade, in commercial baking, and some products on the retail self. Hemmingsen Foods located in David City, Nebraska is also an egg processing company. The eggs used by Hemmingsen's are all under contract with farmer growers in the general David City area. A major builder of poultry houses for egg production in the Central United States in Midwest Livestock Systems of Beatrice, Nebraska. Nebraska is ranked 10th in the United States in egg production.

Nebraska has 18 commercial turkey producers who belong to the Nebraska Turkey Growers Cooperative headquartered in Gibbon, Nebraska east of Kearney. These raise 3,000,000 turkeys each year which are processed at the plant in Gibbon. The two closest producers are in the Waverly area and along I-80 just west of Seward. The turkeys are sold under the Norbest label or the new Norbest-Nebraska Grown label. Some operations have facilities were the turkeys are both inside and outside. The new facilities are large curtain- sided buildings.

Broiler production disappeared in Nebraska except for family production until the beginning of Campbell Soup Company production in the late 1980's. When Campbell quit producing poultry to concentrate on processing and marketing, the Nebraska production has been acquired and operated by MBA poultry. The broilers are produced by contract farmer growers in Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri. The processed chicken is sold under the SmartChicken label. This is the only chicken in the United States which is processed using an air chilled technology which limits added water and markedly reduces contamination of the meat by bacteria. Local growers involved in SmartChicken production are located in Beatrice, Plymouth, and Tecumseh.

The addition of the broiler industry and the egg laying facilities in our area contribute to our economy through labor, value-added to the grain used in feed, processing and sales employment, trucking, and added tax valuation. The nice thing about poultry houses is that the added valuation for taxes is there and even though they are SmartChicken's they don't go to school.

The poultry industry in Nebraska is much larger than most people realize. It is vital to the economy of our state that the poultry industry keeps evolving and changing to meet the needs of or consumer clients.

View other Gage County News Columns & News Letters: http://gage.unl.edu/news/news.htm

to Contact our Staff

Extension is a Division of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln cooperating with the Counties and the United States Department of Agriculture.
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN EXTENSION educational programs abide with the nondiscrimination policies of the University of Nebraska and United States Department of Agriculture. We assure reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.