A state-of-the-art poultry house for barn egg production with 80,000 laying hens recently attracted a large crowd of visitors to Gangelt in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia. Approximately 400 guests accepted the invitation issued by Herwin and Leon Lichtenberg to visit a successful new housing construction for aviary operation.
The two brothers, who originally come from Koningsbosch in the Netherlands and have both been customers of Big Dutchman for many years, also pursued this collaboration with the poultry equipment supplier from Vechta-Calveslage in the implementation of their most recent project. The NATURA 70 aviary and the brand new heat exchangers which Big Dutchman experts designed especially for use in layer management and which ensure high levels of dry matter in manure drying created a very high level of interest.
Sophisticated system for barn egg production reduces management requirements
The poultry house, divided by a sorting and packaging room in the centre, measures a total of 240 metres in length and 24 metres in width. The core of the building is the NATURA70 aviary for barn egg production. The concept of this layer management system is based on the fundamental principle of decreasing the management input required in aviary housing whilst also increasing egg production reliability.
A very substantial benefit is the fact that the birds do not fly at eye level, which considerably eases the controlling task of the layer manager. Further benefits of the aviary also include the small, easily manageable group sizes which are regulated by cross partitions every 2.41 metres. By specific request, the NATURA 70 was supplied with a 50 cm wide longitudinal egg belt instead of the standard width of 35 cm.
Effective heat exchanger used in layer management
“Highly promising technology!” is the unanimous verdict passed by all guests regarding the heat exchangers. The two brothers decided in favour of a new generation of Big Dutchman heat exchangers for application particularly in layer management and thus in barn egg production.
The technology is simple but highly effective: the new poultry house has a manure storehouse at each end and two heat exchangers are installed in each of these storehouses. Exhaust air flues extract warm air from the house and direct it into the hall whilst a continuous stream of fresh air is added simultaneously.
Poultry house with optimum house environment
The heat exchanger makes use of the house air to warm up the fresh air. The warm air is then fed into the system via an air duct and simultaneously dispersed throughout the entire poultry house. As the level of air humidity is low, it is ideal for ventilation of the manure belt – which results in high dry-matter contents and low emissions of ammonia. In winter the pre-warmed air – with minimum ventilation – ensures suitable temperatures in the poultry house.