Scottish Sea Farms has taken the delivery of the first batch of “green” eggs at its new £2 million incubation unit at Barcaldine Hatchery.

The incubation unit is designed to receive eggs immediately post-stripping, giving greater control in the earliest days of the production cycle. The eggs stay at the incubation unit, which is adjacent to the main Barcaldine Hatchery, for six weeks to five months, before being moved to one of Scottish Sea Farms’ three hatcheries: Barcaldine, Knock on the Isle of Mull or Girlsta in Shetland.

The new facility enables eggs to be incubated for longer, at lower temperatures, during the most fragile stages of development. “We have taken the temperature down to below 2ºC which, research suggests, results in better outcomes for fish health later on, particularly cardiac health,” said Rory Conn, head of freshwater. “By incubating the eggs for a longer period, we can meet our year-round demand for eyed ova, ensuring security of supply.”

From this initial batch alone, the company will be able to put close to 600,000 smolts into one of its marine farms around late August next year. “Without the green egg unit, it simply wouldn’t be possible to produce smolts from Scottish-sourced ova at this time of the year,” Conn said.

The facility has a total capacity of seven million ova at any one time and, with an input of up to three batches a year, it could potentially hold 20 million eggs annually. “The facility is delivering what we expected it to do with this first batch and I’m confident that we will be able to produce the number of eggs we need in order to meet our smolt requirements,” said Conn.