Mts Folmer

On 6 April 2005 father and son Folmer started their new ecological farm house. After 15 years the family has returned to poultry again. Until 1990 Mr. Folmer had 1200 broiler breeders. However the return was not good and the labour intensity was to much. The farm also has 45 dairy cows and an agricultural contacting facillity.

In 1990 the familie desided tot turn the poultry house into a pig house. This was very profiotable for quite some years until there was a break out of the pig disease. From that moment the family has been looking for alternatives. Switching to Ecological pigs seemed to be a good sollution but at the end this did not work out because the market colapsed.

On 31 March 2004 the aplication for ecological poultry farm was made. Exactly 1 year and 6 weeks later the first biological eggs were produced. De final choice for ecological farming was made because it has a beter profitability and because Mr. Folmer does not want to produce in mass quantity's. “Beter to be smal and efficient” are the words of Mr. Folmer and with this house that is the exact thing he is going to do.

In the house of 51,5 meter by 15,5 meter are 6000 biological birds. The Silver Nick of Lohmann is a nice steady bird well suitable for the biological housing. Mr Folmer has chosen for a lay out with a two tier nest in the middel of the house with the Compact 2 aviary system on both sides in the scratching area. This lay out offers good escape possibily's for the birds and this reduces drop outs. This has an absolute positive effect on the overall results.

De birds are reared traditional. In 6 weeks time they had to switch to ecological. The production started very early. In the 18th week the first eggs were collected. This is probably the result of the way the birds were reared. This was in a pretty dark house and here they have full ligth that we can reduce a bit with the curtains but not completly. Therefore the maturaty has possitivly been influenced. Now the birds are 39 weeks and are producing over the 90%. At their peak production they were over the 92,5%. The birds have had some problems after the treatment for worms. The production dropped to 88% but it retured to over the 90% again.

Now the birds are kept inside for over a month. During the period before that there were quite some broody birds. According to the specialist from the feed supplier this was caused by being outside. Now they have been in doors for a longer period it has reduced quite a bit. The percentage of floor eggs is a bit disapointing, but that is because there haven't been enough preventing measures taken. Mr. Folmer has placed crates with straw in the corners “It gives some relieve, but next time we will apply more electric wire”. In front of the top nest Mr. Folmer has adjusted the preches. This has had a positive result on the cleanlyness of the nests.

The building period went smoothly. There was sufficient time and all activity's were conducted under supervision. This made it possible for Mr. Folmer to do most of the work him self with very good support of Jansen mechanics.

In the egg collection room Mr. Folmer has a Staalkat FP 102S egg packing machine. The eggs are transported onto that with the Jansen Poultry Equipment Flexbelt. In a next situation Mr. Folmer would give a different ending to this. Your standing here anyway, so you might as well coolect the eggs side by side. We did not realy think this one fully trough. The situation now is also very good workable and it fitted perfectly in the budget and ofcourse it results in a good reduction of labour.

If you want to be informed on the best possible solution for your situation contact our poultry specialist.