Developing a laying hen production workshop

Poultry farming (eggs) Starting in agriculture

While it is very common when living in the countryside to have a few laying hens in your garden, managing fewer than ten has nothing to do with having a laying hen operation on your farm.

It is a specific rhythm, a specific regulation to comply with, a feed ration to master and a marketing circuit to set up.

This article reports on a series of farm visits by the Traveling Agroecology School (EAV) and therefore presents all these challenges. They are the main points to know when considering the opening of a laying hen operation.

Laying hens: a very good diversification enterprise

Opinions on the subject are quite unanimous, the laying hen enterprise is a very good diversification activity.

Benjamin Frezel from Ferme de Tréverol (56) offers a slight caveat on the subject: “You need to know what you are getting into, breeding laying hens is an activity that requires rigor, precision, and know-how, especially beyond 250 hens.”

He is right: you should not start without at least some training and preparation, if only because you are taking care of living beings!

Benefits of the laying hen enterprise

The egg is a loss leader product that complements another agricultural production very well, there is strong customer demand that remains stable throughout the year. It is a staple product that is always in demand: it can bring you customers who will then buy your other products in case of direct sale, for example. The income contribution is almost guaranteed and immediate: if a high productivity breed has been chosen, the hen lays an egg every day or almost as soon as she reaches the “ready to lay” status.
The laying hen enterprise can easily have a medium to high profitability if well managed. “The hen is a cash flow lever. If you are good at sales, you have money coming in all the time” Claire from Ferme des GonneGirls (14)
Raising laying hens is a relatively low time-consuming activity. On average, among 9 farms visited by the Traveling Agroecology School (EAV) trio, time commitments of 7h/week for operations with fewer than 250 hens and 18h/week for operations between 250 and 1500 hens were observed. Poultry farming takes "small moments throughout the day and every day".
There is a real complementarity with plant enterprises on a farm (market gardening, arboriculture or cereals): hens provide an increase in fertility indirectly (via manure) or directly (via grazing) and allow for soil regeneration where control of certain pests occurs. It is also an enterprise that can valorize by-products of crops such as straw, rapeseed meal, etc.

The very often found pairing is market gardening/laying hens, as is the case at La Ferme des Filles (33) and Ferme des Clos with fewer than 250 hens but also at La Ferme des GonneGirls (14) with more than 600 hens.

The daily and seasonal rhythm of a laying hen farm

Several things to know about the laying hen

It is a home-loving animal; once the sun sets, the hen wants to stay sheltered in the chicken coop.
It is also a gregarious animal designed to live in groups and does not like to be alone.
It is a perching animal; it does not sleep on the ground but on perches.
It is a neophobic animal that poorly tolerates novelty (whether new pullets in the group or a sudden change in diet).

Commitments

Although the laying hen is quite independent, it remains a living being that has daily attention needs. Some rituals are therefore unavoidable:

The opening of the chicken coop in the morning and the closing in the evening; some coops and programmable devices allow automating this process.
The daily provision of feed and fresh water; it is possible to create a water and food reserve in the coop, as at Ferme des Champs de Bray (76).
The collection and packaging of eggs must be frequent so they remain clean. Washing eggs is prohibited in France: this increases the shell's porosity and induces risks of contamination by salmonella.

Environment and hygiene

For the animal's health, it is very important that hens can live and move in a clean, dry, and ventilated environment:

The drinkers and feed containers as well as the nests must be cleaned weekly.
The straw in nests or the coop must be replaced as soon as it is too soiled and/or damp.
A thorough cleaning of the coop must be done about every month.

In addition to these tasks, there are occasional maintenance tasks for the coops and also batch management when they are renewed (about every year). You will then need to respect a sanitary break between batches; it is preferable to have two coops to avoid production stoppage during this period (at least 14 days).

In the case of mobile chicken coops, also plan for the time to move the coops (weekly or monthly depending on the size of the plots, the number of hens, and the condition of the pasture) and pasture management.

Productivity and vigilance

Hens also have a seasonality: they lay all year round but a clear drop in laying is generally visible in winter due to reduced daylight and temperatures. This drop can be mitigated with the installation of a lighting system in the coop, or by reinforcing the insulation of the coop. For the AB label accreditation, a maximum duration of 16 hours per day of artificial lighting must be respected; it is often advised to favor morning lighting to allow a "natural" end of day.

Some farms, such as Claire and Gaëlle from Ferme des GonneGirls (14), equipped with mobile coops, can place their hens in greenhouses in winter so they stay warm and have a better laying rate.

Finally, one of the most important things to keep in mind when working with living beings (plants or animals) is observation! Be attentive to the state of your hens, their behavior, and their evolution. Regularly check their health by inspecting feathers, comb, eyes, beak, crop, cloaca, and legs. Also watch other details: the quality of laid eggs (shell hardness, for example), the appearance of their droppings, their appetite, and their behavior within the group. If a hen seems to be in poor health, isolate her! Hens tend to attack injured, dying, and weakened hens… which generally does not help their condition!

“Be very attentive to the appearance of your hens; they must be beautiful to look at, a mistake quickly affects laying, and every percent counts since your workload will not change but your profit will.” Matthieu Gooskens from GAEC de Coume Sourde (11).

What standards and regulations apply to laying hens?

Specific organic regulations

Here are the regulatory elements concerning organic poultry farming of laying hens:

Net indoor surface: 6 hens/m².
18 cm of perch per hen.
Nest box: 7 hens/nest or 120 cm²/hen (collective nests).
At least ⅓ of the floor surface must be neither grids nor slatted floors.
A minimum of 2.5m² per hen of outdoor surface available in mobile coops.

“Regulations today are not adapted to a mobile, small agroecological breeding system. If the surface per hen is respected in current regulations, this requires a large and heavy coop, harder to move. Inspectors are therefore sometimes tolerant if the surface per hen is not respected in the coop since hens only spend the night and laying time there. Today, several breeders have built a relationship of trust with their certifying body. This relationship will, we hope, with the help of AFPM (French Association of Mobile Chicken Coops), help evolve the regulations” Opaline Lyziak from Agron’hommes.

The 250-hen limit

The sanitary regulation depends on the size of the breeding and the type of marketing chosen. Whatever the size, every breeding must be declared to the DDPP (Departmental Directorate for the Protection of Populations) and obtain a breeding number. This number must appear on the eggs (ink stamp marking) except in the case of direct sale to the consumer within a radius of less than 80 km (markets, home delivery, farm sales, etc.)

Beyond 250 hens or if eggs are marketed through an intermediary, it is mandatory to go through a CEO (Egg Packing Center) that is approved. It is possible to create your own CEO on the farm (approval file to be submitted to the DDPP). Salmonella testing must also be done every 15 weeks.

Eggs are called "extra fresh" between 1 and 9 days, "fresh" between 9 and 21 days. The sales deadline to the consumer is 21 days, the consumption deadline is 28 days.

Focus on the CEO

On farms visited by the EAV, the price of a CEO (Egg Packing Center) ranged from €3,000 to €15,000 depending on the level of mechanization chosen. A low-mechanization CEO means candling and grading eggs by hand (and sometimes up to 1000 eggs per day, it can get long...). Some, like Ferme de Tréverol (56), have chosen to delegate it to a neighboring farmer.

Candling is an operation that allows individually examining each egg to classify them by quality category by removing from shell consumption eggs with deformities and/or dirt and/or cracks.

The steps to follow in a CEO are: collection, reception and sorting of eggs, candling, grading, marking, packaging, and storage at 5°C.

Necessary equipment for a CEO

An installation for candling, automatic or continuously operated, allowing separate examination of the quality of each egg, and a device to assess the air chamber height.
Equipment for grading, sorting eggs by weight category, one or more certified scales for weighing eggs or calibrating the grader.
A system for marking eggs, manual or automatic.

The egg packing center at Ferme des GonneGirls (14) - photo credit: FEVE.

Choosing your laying hens well and feeding them

Different breeds

The hen is a gregarious and social animal. It needs a flock, and within the group, a specific hierarchy generally establishes itself.

Generally, laying hens are acquired at the pullet stage “ready to lay”, at 16-18 weeks. An acclimatization of at least two weeks is necessary, during which they remain inside the building, without access to the outdoor run. This period should also be used to “train” hens to lay in nests. Production reaches its steady state at 24 weeks.

This purchase at the pullet stage thus reduces the number of breeds available in organic. If you want rustic breeds or to work on crosses to have rustic breeds that are a bit more productive, you will probably need to develop your own hatchery, which is the project of Ferme de Tréverol (56) and is already done by Ferme de la Brosse (77).

The hens most often found in laying hen enterprises are red hens (Lohmann or Isa Brown). They are sociable hens with an excellent laying rate (82% on average). However, they are poorly adapted to grazing.

As Benjamin from Tréverol says: “an intensive breeding laying hen is a Formula 1 car, you cannot drive it on a country road” so any change in their habits (especially since they spent 16 weeks in a building environment) greatly disrupts the laying rate. Red pullets cost between €8 and €10 each according to Ferme de Marcillac (24).

In parallel, there are rustic breeds like Géline de Touraine or Gournay which have lower laying rates (60%) but are more resistant and adapted to grazing. They also have the advantage of being usable as broilers.

Thus, at Ferme de la Brosse (77), chicks are bought at 1 day old for €2 each: males are raised as broilers and females as laying hens. Hens thus stay on average 2 and a half years on the farm.

Feeding

Recall that the hen is neophobic; once accustomed to a specific type of feed: composition and format, she will have difficulty adapting to a change, which will reflect on the laying rate. Having a hatchery simplifies acclimatization to a particular feed.

The hen is an opportunistic omnivore: she adapts to her environment and can consume grains, meat, and grass. To produce an egg, she has significant protein needs, so it is necessary to provide feed that meets her nutritional requirements.

Here are the elements to consider for hen feeding:

130g of grains per day per hen (often left ad libitum).
A balanced mix for laying hens consists of about 70% cereals and 30% legumes (they need carbohydrates, proteins, and calcium).
For feed, it is possible to source from cooperatives, neighboring farmers, or self-produce. But making feed on the farm requires land (5 ha for 250 layers), equipment, and mastery of cereal and forage production.
Grass can make up to 20% of the hen's daily ration.
For animal proteins, the hen can eat insects, larvae, and earthworms found on the soil surface and by scratching. Possible supplements include oyster shells (calcium for shell hardness), small stones (help the gizzard function and digestion since, as far as we know, hens have no teeth!), and vitamin C.

Fresh and clean water must also be available ad libitum.

If self-producing hen feed is complex and costly, it makes sense on a diversified farm that already has a cereal enterprise like at Tréverol. Alternatively, it is possible to partner with a neighboring farmer who grows cereals. This is the case at Ferme des Gobettes (27) where crushed corn, fava beans, and peas come from a neighbor practicing organic CA willing to sell at a much lower price than a cooperative.

Health of laying hens

First rule: plan an infirmary space to protect and isolate sick hens. Favor treatments by homeopathy and phytotherapy. Sanitary breaks and rotation of runs limit parasitic infections. The most frequently encountered “external” parasite is a mite commonly called red mite (particularly active in hot weather). Use diatomaceous earth preventively (on surfaces and perches) and curatively. Prophylaxis obligations concern farms with more than 250 layers.

Main predators and parasites are:

Red mites

Preventive control: in coop construction, avoid crevices or openings allowing colony establishment. Apply diatomaceous earth or ashes on surfaces. Perform sanitary breaks.

Curative control: predatory mites (biological control), thorough cleaning of the coop (at Ferme de Pibot (17), red mites are vacuumed every 15 days or so) or burn infected external areas.

Intestinal worms

Preventive control: prolonged pasture rotations in case of mobile chicken coop and sanitary break.

Curative control: apple cider vinegar in hens' water.

Predators (Fox, marten, stone marten, birds of prey)

Mesh of defined size, protection of birds of prey by trees, electrified nets, traps, domestic animals (patou dog, donkey, alpaca: any territorial animal), solid fencing surrounding all explored areas (if the territory is particularly rich in wildlife).

Eggs and marketing

Laying and the egg

Various factors can impact the laying rate:

Breed.
Unbalanced or changed feed.
Diseases and parasites.
Large temperature variations: some put hens in greenhouses in winter to protect them from the cold.
Day length and light (possible addition of light in winter, preferably in the morning).
Age of hens (about 20% drop in laying rate each year).

The average organic selling price of an egg is €0.38 including tax/egg.

Marketing

Eggs are generally marketed by direct sale: at the farm, in AMAP, at markets, in producer shops. Ferme de Coume Sourde (11) sells 20% of its eggs via a fridge in self-service in front of the farm, “the most profitable fridge in the world”. A diversity of marketing channels provides security for selling the entire production.

Spent hens

Hens are culled after 16 months (beyond that, laying becomes more erratic). Smaller operations often organize a sale or donation to individuals because hens still lay regularly and can be sufficient for a family. Other hens are generally slaughtered. If choosing on-farm slaughter, additional investment is required. They can be sold “ready to cook” or cooked: stewed hen, confit hen, rillettes. Ferme de Coume Sourde (11) decided to slaughter hens on the farm to then process the meat into dog food (which is often poorly traceable feed).

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