DOBSON, NC. — Wayne-Sanderson Farms Dobson recently upgraded its hatchery with a $1.3 million project that improved the work environment for employees and created a new gender-sorting capability to the 25,000 square-foot facility.

A recent decision to sort birds by gender at the Dobson facility, with females going to small-bird operations in Alabama and males staying at the Dobson facility, created the need for a sorting space.

“Since we were going to gender identification and sorting here, we needed more space, so it only made sense to improve the work environment for our people at the same time,” said Matthew Wooten, the Dobson complex manager.

“We decided to expand the hatchery by converting the existing office and workspace over to hatchery operations and then build out new workspace including offices, restrooms, breakroom and kitchen,” he added.

The Dobson hatchery employs 37 team members and sets 831,000 eggs each week.