By Matt Donald, pig and poultry farmer, north Yorkshire
We are in the middle of turning around one breeder farm and have just over three weeks to do so. Unlike a broiler shed, we have quite a bit of equipment to take out and wash separately. Although feeders and drinkers winch up, we dismantle the slats, and part of the nest including every nest mat in order to have a thorough clean. We test for red mite and see very little of it, I put this down to doing such a strip down and clean of the nest system itself.
All external areas and ventilation systems get a good wash to ensure the place is spotless. Thanks to the hard work from our local cleaning team Precision Cleaning, it takes a little over a week to wash a 36,000 bird breeder unit, leaving us plenty of time within the three weeks for maintenance, rebuilding and disinfecting.
Maximising the efficiency of breeder farms is vital in order to get the most from the investment, anything greater than a four week turn around starts to eat into time that could be used to produce eggs.
The flow of eggs into the hatchery needs to be constant and it is a careful balancing act for supply to meet demand, fortunately that’s in the hands of P D Hook who do a great job, sometimes we benefit from a shorter turnaround, this makes up for times of poorer demand and we fall into a six week break- or worse!
Although it’s a hectic time, the time for everyone to get a break usually comes when we get birds back into the sheds and we have four weeks before there are many eggs. This time is critical to set the flock off to a good start, but the workload is at its least in these weeks.