HERE COME THE EGGS

Con­struc­tion should get under­way soon on the new Hil­lan­dale Farms egg farm near Hicksville now that The Ohio Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture has issued the final per­mits to oper­ate the facil­ity as of last Fri­day.

The oper­a­tion will be the first new poul­try farm in Ohio to be con­structed under the new Ohio Live­stock Care Stan­dards law.

Hil­lan­dale Farms is one of the lead­ing sup­pli­ers of fresh eggs in the United States.

Com­pany offi­cials say con­struc­tion should begin later this month or in early June and hens should be in the barns by Octo­ber.

The $85 mil­lion project will even­tu­ally have four mil­lion hens lay­ing 250,000 dozen eggs a day.

Addi­tion­ally, the com­pany is plan­ning to use 130 bushels of local corn a day to feed the chick­ens, and Hil­lan­dale Farms offi­cials have said they plan to pur­chase feed sup­plies from local farm­ers for the hens.