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The Reasons Why the World is Moving to Community Nests
Our world of broiler breeders at grandparent and parent stock levels is moving fast to more technification, trying to reduce the cost of hatching eggs and to manage larger breeder flocks with less labor available and receive a higher quality egg.
Many countries suffer from labor shortages, and the available hand-labor is often of reduced technical quality and needs a lot of training and constant education.
Egg collection is a daily activity that may take more time.
There are currently two production house configurations related to higher technification or automation for broiler breeders worldwide. In this article, we will call these two systems the US and the European concept.
THE US CONCEPT:
Here, we have basically all the nest, feeding, and drinker equipment for females on the slats. The house has a central scratch area for the males with their feeding system. Males need to go on the slats to drink.
This US concept has a significant advantage: the floor eggs are often low. Still, a significant disadvantage is that female density cannot go lower than 1.95 ft2/female or higher than 5.5 females/m2, and that is, in theory, already on the high side, then feeder space is shorted to only 4.7” (12.1 cm).
Adult hens need 6” (15 cm) for all birds to eat at the same time. This is especially important in the period from 21 weeks to peak production, when feeding cleanup times can be very fast if crumbled or pelleted feed is used.
The other disadvantage is that slats need to be at least 17.7” (45 cm) in height to avoid over time that the droppings will accumulate below the slats and come up through the slats, dirtying and contaminating the feet of the hens.
A high slat often requires more use of litter to reduce the step-up distance, which is more costly, and more litter will entice hens to lay in the scratch area, causing a loss of hatching eggs or more contamination.
THE EUROPEAN CONCEPT:
This concept uses large community nests in the middle of the house, giving more space to the total house area to add more feeder space and, with that, the possibility of increasing female density considerably. This is a great advantage for the grower, increasing his return on investment (ROI) considerably and getting easier bank loans with higher income. The US market could benefit greatly from this concept.
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