Barn Spotlight: Poplar Ridge Farms

Location:  Rosenort, Man.

Sector:  Layers

The business
Jerry Bartel is a second-generation egg farmer from Rosenort, Man. He farms with his son Justin, who plans to one day take over the family farm. They have 10,700 laying hens. Bartel has owned and operated the farm for the last 30 years, including 19 years of free-run flocks.

The need
In 2019, the family decided to build a new layer barn. Bartel spent a lot of time researching, visiting other facilities and trade shows and thinking of improvements for their operation. In 2020, the producers were finally ready to make these improvements and built their dream barn that they designed themselves. 

The manure room includes concrete on the floor and part of the walls to make for easy clean-up.

Scrapers are used to scrape the manure out every day, keeping the ammonia levels low.

Hens lay eggs in the nest boxes, which then roll safely into a covered egg belt.

Bartel installed highly capable ventilation throughout the barn .

The barn
The Bartels built a new single-tier free-run facility and placed the first flock in May. The barn boasts state-of-the-art manure scrapers along with a dedicated manure room. The family included these features specifically to address the high ammonia level in winter, which has been a big challenge for facilities with a manure pit underneath the slatted floor. “The manure scraper installed in the storage pit underneath the floor allows frequent removal of manure from the laying facility,” says Manitoba Egg Farmers’ extension specialist Dr. Wei Jia. “We look forward to seeing how much this device will help improve indoor air quality when the winter comes.” 

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.