Barn Spotlight: Law’s Horizon Egg Farm
By Canadian Poultry Staff
Features Poultry Equipment ProducersA farm ahead of the enriched curve.
Aaron Law, pictured here, and his parents transitioned from conventional housing to enriched. Location
Belleisle Bay, N.B.
Sector
Layers, pullets
The business
The Laws are third-generation egg farmers. Their business is run by Gailand Law, his wife Carol and son Aaron. It dates back to the 1930s when Gailand’s father started a mixed farm.
The need
Prior to 2015, the Laws housed hens in different conventional barns. Those systems were close to 30 years old. Thus, they decided to modernize their layer operation. They still had the option of building a new conventional barn at the time. However, they went with enriched. “We saw consumer trends on the horizon – it didn’t make sense to me to build a conventional housing system,” says Aaron, adding that they felt it was a better option for their hens as well.
For barn automation, they went with an Orion system from Hotraco.
To ease the physical workload for staff, they installed an in-floor pallet lift.
The barn
The Laws installed an enriched system from Hellmann. They surrounded it with modern technologies, including a heat exchanger and manure dryer. “The heat exchanger has huge advantages in air quality, a gain not only for the birds but for the staff,” Aaron observes. To ease the physical workload for staff, they also installed a Diamond FPX100 Farmpacker and stacker and an in-floor pallet lift. Aaron says the transition went smoothly. “There are no challenges with feed or water consumption. We rarely have behavioural challenges. And our downgrades are slightly lower.”
Barn Spotlight highlights new and renovated barns and hatcheries. Do you know of a good candidate to be featured? Let us know at poultry@annexweb.com.
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