The invention relates to an egg processing system, comprising:- a classifier configured to identify live avian eggs among a plurality of eggs- a sampling apparatus configured to extract material from the eggs identified as live avian eggs and deposit the extracted material into respective sample receptacles of a sample tray- a sample tray handling system and- an assaying station configured to assay material in the sample tray extracted from each live avian egg so as to identify eggs having a characteristic.The invention also relates to a corresponding method of processing avian eggs having an identified characteristic.
