Experts address key issues raised by free-range egg farmers

Members of the Midlands Free Range Discussion Group staged their own version of BBC’s Question Time for their final meeting of 2009. Ken Randall brings the highlights

With free-range egg producer Tom Vesey in the chair, the Group assembled their own panel of experts to tackle today’s most pressing questions in the free range sector. The rest of the panel comprised: Steve Carlyle of Country Fresh Pullets; poultry vet Paul McMullin; and Frank Wright Trouw nutritionist Roger Farley. There were also contributions from the audience.

Steve Carlyle: My view is that there is going to be some control, because the hatcheries can’t suddenly magic up chicks from nowhere, and the pullet rearers can’t find more pullets. There might be producers who want to come in, but they could have difficulties.

We are pretty well sold out (of pullets) the whole of next year. We might have 50,000 that are unallocated as yet.

Free range had been expanding very quickly, but we are going to see a downturn in the cage side. We’ve currently got about 17m birds in cages in the UK, and come 2012 I would estimate we’ll have about 10m in the colony system, so there’s a 7m cutback there already. So I think the free range can expand, but please be cautious of some of the figures that are banded about.

Roger Farley: The people in this room know what they’re doing. It’s the new entrants who see an opportunity, who are going to borrow some money, but they have to get a contract first. And those contracts might dry up quite quickly.

Tom Vesey: I think you’re right, there will possibly be a surplus of free-range eggs and that is very worrying. The astonishing thing is that there are people who are building houses without a contract. What is absolutely vital is that both producers and packers, and I mean all the packers, ought to manage this.

Paul McMullin: You will not eliminate brachyspira with any treatment regime, and even if you could they would get re-infected from the external environment.

Sometimes even producers with a first flock get hit. The usual thing is brownish droppings with lots of froth. Producers tend to medicate quickly, rather than wait for blood test results, and then they see a response (in improved performance), but some of that response is control of other bugs.

So we don’t really know how much of production problems are purely due to brachyspira.

SC: One, order early enough. It’s important to get booked into the correct unit for your requirements.

Two, harass your chick supplier and three, decide what vaccination programme you want. We do 23 vaccines in 16 weeks as standard. If you want more, you need to talk with your pullet supplier.

Four, make sure your pullet rearer is doing the best job he can nutritionally. It needs a very high quality starter crumb, moving on to meal at six weeks.

Crucially, liaise at transfer with your rearer. Don’t put the birds on a lower spec diet than they have been on. Keep that bodyweight going into early lay.

RF: Rear to bodyweights, and check weigh every three weeks. Don’t automatically change ration, such as from chick to grower, at a set age. Do it to bodyweight.

RF: Correct feed will support optimum production. Looking back over the last 10-15 years, free-range birds haven’t always been fed the correct nutrition. Today we are recommending significantly better diets than we were 10 years ago. Diets need higher energy, the free-range bird has a lot more pressures on it, is a lot more active. The egg is valuable and you can afford to feed it better.

SC: There’s a tendency for everyone to go round blaming everyone else. I see it differently. We in the industry are all in partnership and the process starts before feed and pullet – with the chick.

If we get the right chick, and if we feed and vaccinate it correctly through rear, and give the producer the best bird to do the job, then we all stand a chance. Unfortunately everyone wants guarantees they’re going to get 320 eggs, with no challenges from diseases, or poor feed issues, or problems with pullets,

TV: Why do some producers produce good flocks time after time? I’m afraid it comes down to management. If you know what you’re doing you will somehow get through. You can blame the pullet, the chick, the feed, but it’s the producer in the final analysis.

From the room: I did visit a free-range unit where there was quite a lot of muck on the plastic upper tiers. I was quite surprised how much muck there was, as these were young birds.

With my own unit, I would put steel slats now, on reflection, for reasons of hygiene and cleanliness. At the end of the cycle they’re a lot easier to clean. If you take a look across Europe, since the re-emergence of what they call steel slats or wire floors, most new units are having them as opposed to the plastic slats. They have been endorsed by Freedom Food, so here in the UK it is likely we will see a growth in wire floors

PMc: Research work at Bristol found that birds on wire actually behaved better and appeared less stressed. One of the issues with plastic in principle is it looks like good hygiene, but what about the gaps and crevices? A lot will depend on your actual structure, particularly the red mite issue. With any equipment, are we providing harbourages for red mite?

Secondly, white slats are a very good way of reflecting light back into the nest boxes I’ve got a hobby-horse about nestbox light and vent damage. I believe a lot of peritonitis is due to pecking of birds as they open the vent to lay.

From the room: I’m an equipment manufacturer and we offer both plastic and metal with a negligible price difference. There are pros and cons for both.

People ask me what they think will be acceptable in the future. I don’t think Freedom Foods have yet endorsed their use.

People building new units, if they go for steel, need to know they’ve got longevity. They’re not interchangeable with plastic. You make a choice of steel or plastic and for that reason I think it’s important the industry chooses what it wants to do, rather than waiting until someone else says you can’t do it. I asked the RSPCA and was told to wait and see. It[‘s currently acceptable but may not be in the future.

TV: I don’t think that’s good enough. I think we need to get a ruling from the RSPCA on this.

PMc: Principally it depends on bird density and area. IB can spread fairly easily. We talk about biosecurity in terms of salmonella and so forth, but IBs will spread downwind fairly easily over 10s of kilometres. So if you’ve got large population densities in an area, whether a large cage unit, or enough free-range units, you will generate enough viruses for it to circulate. So the best thing is to coordinate vaccination on an area basis. It’s not that critical how frequently you do it?

SC: Free-range producers have got to take vet advice, because of the 21 standard vaccines we give during the 16 weeks of the rearing period, I don’t think these can be expected to protect the bird all through the laying cycle. There’s got to be more emphasis on vaccination programmes in lay, to keep a blocking mechanism for the challenges the bird is going to face.