Despite their vintage, David reports that the nests are still functioning exactly as they should. “We have just turned the site around between flocks and apart from giving the nests a
thorough wash, there was very little else to do to them in order to get them ready for the new flock,” said David. “The only maintenance required so far has been to change one of the rams on the nest expel system. When I rang Eamonn he informed me that as it was one of the original parts fitted seventeen years a go it wouldn’t be under warranty, which was fair enough!”

Meanwhile over in Holland, Albert Jansen was delighted to hear that David’s nests we re still performing well but he was not surprised. “We have nests over here that are even older than that and are still giving trouble-free service,” said Albert, who was responsible for designing the first automatic nests in an effort to make life easier for his father , who farmed broilerbreeders.

Albert didn’t follow his father into farming, instead choosing a career in engineering, but would help on the family farm at weekends. Frustrated by the number of floor eggs and dirty and damaged eggs laid in the hand collection nests which were commonplace in those days, he set about designing an alternative.

What followed were many months of observing his father’s hens and trying many different prototypes. The eventual result was the Jansen automatic nest which revolutionised egg collection in non-cage systems and set the industry-standard for subsequent nest design.