Opening Day: Hamlot Poultry Hillside

Hamlot Poultry Hillside broiler chicken farm was started in 2017 by Jerry and Rina Van Ham with their young children Nathan and Luna.

The business
Hamlot Poultry Hillside broiler chicken farm was started in 2017 by Jerry and Rina Van Ham with their young children Nathan and Luna. Jerry had been poultry farming since 1999 with his parents. The Van Hams sell their chickens to Maple Lodge Farms, and its mainly marketed through Costco and Swiss Chalet. They purchase their feed from Masterfeeds.

The need
The Van Hams needed a second barn to expand to their current 70,000 birds. “Our goal was to create a more efficient and better environment for the birds,” Rina says, “and for ourselves.”

The barn
Instead of having a separate feed system for each barn, a new central feeding system now supplies both barns. From four silos (Eurosilos) between the buildings, feed gets augured to one weigh system, then gets distributed to each barn’s storage hopper. This system also has the capability of blending other feed ingredients such as wheat.  

“We also installed hot water boilers with multi-heat radiators/blow fans from WRC Plumbing, who did great work installing it,” Rina explains. She says, traditionally, they used box heaters to heat the old barn, which emit CO2 gasses. They converted the box heaters to the new type on the old barn and converted the lighting in the old barn to LED to make both barns identical.

Location: Tillsonburg, Ont.

Sector: Broilers

From four silos between the buildings, feed gets augured to one weigh system and is then distributed to each barn’s storage hopper.