Growing broilers in a comfort colony system
It seems contradictory to current trends: keeping birds in cages, rather than on the floor. Or said in a different and probably better way: keeping them in a comfort colony system. Yet, practice has proved that broiler cages offer a wide range of advantages, both for the birds and for the poultry producer. Adequate management of this more complicated system is essential, however.
Growing broilers in cages is not a new phenomenon. According to poultry management consultant Frans Fransen in his column in WP nr. 10 of last year, the system was tested 30 years ago already. However, it never really took off, as there were too many complicating factors, mainly attributed to wrong flooring systems in those days. Yet, gradually it got introduced, although not in Europe. It is not even allowed in Europe nowadays, as the EU accepted a directive on the welfare of broilers.
According to this directive, the density of broilers per square meter is set to a maximum and also other demands must be met (see box). Since broilers in a cage system are kept in three or four tiers on top of each other, the allowed density per square meter will automatically be exceeded two to three times. Just in theory, this is not allowed.However, according to Fransen in his WP column, broiler cages offer a wide range of advantages and outside Europe these advantages are well understood. In recent years quite a number of large integrators around the world have moved to growing broilers in such systems. Apart from saving space and investment in houses, the growing conditions and results also seem to be much better.
Different concept
The broiler cage system is clearly different from the traditional system of keeping birds on the floor. Particularly compared to systems in the US, where they are kept with clean out only incidentally, it is a completely different concept.
| EU welfare rules
The EU welfare directive for broilers came into force in 2007. The broiler directive has three steps of welfare regulations. The first step sets demands on drinkers, litter, ventilation and heating, noise emissions, air quality and hygiene. Maximum number of broilers is set to 33 kg live weight per square meter. Producers who take additional measures are allowed to increase the occupancy level to 39 kg per square meter. They have to keep an administration and report the increased occupancy to the national ministries. A further increase to 42 kg per square meter is possible if the producer fulfils additional conditions on the use of GMP and reduction of mortality. |
In a cage system, the broilers are kept in compartments. Depending on the make of the cages and the end weight for slaughter, the number of birds per compartment may vary. But usually it ranges from 100 to 165 birds per section. Depending on the circumstances and the sizes of the house, there are four to six rows per house and they are three or four tiers high. Also two tier systems are possible, but then the investment usually will be too high to fully benefit from it and the return on investment will be much longer.
For that reason, not every existing house will be suitable for installing cage systems. In some cases, a house can be reconstructed by making the roof higher, thus making it suitable for installing cages. Of course there’s room needed in between the rows in order to have access to the compartments. In the lower rows this is possible from floor level, but for the higher compartments usually a kind of bicycle operated moving platform is available.
The width of the alley is around one meter. Taking off the surface area that is needed for the alleys in between the rows, and the front and rear end, net capacity of a four tier system is about 2,7 to 3 times more for a four tier system, compared to the traditional floor system.
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