suits in a slight reduction for surveillance labor. Chick vaccination add- 

 ed to the hatching-debeaking process increases the variable labor input 

 from 25 man-hours for hatchery A to 417.5 man-hours a week for hatch- 

 ery H. This operation is conducted by a separate crew working concur- 

 rently with the debeaking crew. Consequently, vaccination operations 

 have no effect on the requirement for surveillance labor. 



Labor productivity and estimates of the size of the labor force are 

 contained in Table 4. Productivity for hatching increases with scale 

 from 145 to 710 chicks per man-hour. Of this increase, 62 percent is from 

 elimination of the surveillance labor input while the remainder is from 

 productivity increases in egg traying and tray washing. The size of the 

 labor force increases from three full-time and one part-time employees 

 for hatchery A to ten full-time and four part-time employees for hatch- 

 ery H. 



Labor productivity for the hatching-debeaking process increases 

 from 131 chicks to 538 chicks per man-hour over the range of hatchery 

 sizes considered. The addition of the debeaking operation to hatching 

 reduces labor productivity substantially more in the larger scale hatch- 

 eries than in the smaller hatcheries. The labor force for this process 

 ranges from three full-time and two part-time employees for hatchery A 

 to ten full-time and nine part-time employees for hatchery H. Debeaking 

 is generally performed by part-time labor. 



For the hatching-debeaking-vaccination process, labor productivity 

 increases from 116 chicks per man-hour for hatchery A to 350 chicks 

 per man-hour for hatchery H. The addition of the vaccination operation 

 reduces lal)or productivity further, but the reduction is greater in the 

 larger scale hatcheries. The labor force ranges from three full-time and 

 five part-time employees for hatchery A to ten full-time and 19 part- 

 time employees for hatchery H. Vaccination is also generally performed 

 by part-time labor. 



As scale increases, the man-hours added by the service operations 

 become an increasing proportion of the total lal)or input and reduce the 

 rate of increase in labor productivity. The explanation is that produc- 

 tivity for the service operations either remains constant or increases at 

 a slower rate than productivity for the hatching process. Consequently, 

 the service operations reduce productivity by only 20 percent for hatch- 

 ery A and by 51 percent for hatchery H. 



Labor Cost 



The observed hatcheries generally hired labor on an hourly liasis, 

 and the base wage rate ranged from $1.10 to $1.80 per hour. In addition 

 were a number of fringe benefits such as Social Security, vacation pay, 

 and medical insurance. For purposes of this study, labor is assigned a 

 cost of $1.35 per hour which is assumed to include fringe benefits. 



The labor cost per chick decreases rapidly with initial increases in 

 scale but tends to level off beyond hatchery D (Table 5) . For the hatch- 

 ing process, the cost per chick decreases from 0.932 cents for hatchery 

 A to 0.190 cents for hatcheries G and H. Labor costs decrease from 1.033 

 cents per chick for hatchery A to 0.251 cents per chick for hatchery H 

 for the hatching-debeaking process. For the hatching-debeaking-vaccina- 



14 



