Hours spent bird-watching pays off
It is 20 years since Albert Jansen produced the first ever automatic rollaway nestbox.
At the time producers of loose-housed hens across Europe used a variety of nests, ranging from simple wooden structures filled with shavings to individual metal rollaways complete with a plastic bowl for a nest.
Here in the UK with free range egg production growing in popularity, most producers were using a semi-communal rear rollaway based on a wire floor overlaid with ‘Netlon’. They worked—to a point— but with hens never particularly attracted to them due to a lack of comfort, floor eggs were common, as were dirty eggs unless producers went to the trouble of manually closing-off the nests at night.
It was exactly these sorts of problems that faced Albert, the son of a Dutch broiler-breeder farmer, whenever he helped his father on the farm.
“The birds laid their eggs in nests which were filled with litter and collecting them was very labour intensive,” explains Albert. “And if you were just an hour or so late collecting the eggs, then eggs would get broken which led to egg-eating and the soiling of other eggs in the nest. It was not a good system.”
It was this that spurred Albert—who had chosen a career in engineering rather than poultry farming—to come up with a better design. Many months of simply sitting in his father’s hen houses observing the hens’ nesting behaviour followed.
Several prototypes were produced, with Albert experimenting until he discovered exactly which design the hens favoured most. Even the red-coloured curtains that have become a universal feature of automatic nests didn’t come about by accident.
“It was the hens that chose, not me,” says Albert. “First we tried blue curtains, then white, yellow, purple and finally red. Purple and red were the most popular.”
Those hours spent observing nesting activity also taught Albert that the hens were most at ease when they could face forward looking out of the front of the nest. It is the very reason that Jansen nests have always featured a central egg belt.
“In the wild a nesting bird will look out for predators and it’s only natural that hens have the same instinct,” says Albert. “So if she is looking out of the front of the nest it makes sense to slope the nest to the back so the eggs roll clear of her.”
Again it is a design feature that has been widely incorporated into the majority of nests now commercially available.
It took Albert over three years to get the design exactly right, for any modifications that were introduced were all tested on his father’s farm and if further changes had to be made then he had to wait until flocks were depleted before he could trial them.
The result of Albert’s endeavours was the world’s first automatic communal nest complete with an expel mechanism that closed off the nests at night. It was a design that revolutionised the keeping of hens in alternative systems and even now, 20 years on, many producers would still argue it has been the industry’s single most important development.
And the development doesn’t stop for Jansen. The company, which has its base in Barneveld at the heart of Holland’s huge poultry industry, has introduced a new nest. Whilst suitable for all layer types, the Premium+ nest has been introduced primarily because broiler breeders are becoming larger. The nest is still based around Jansen’s original proven design but has an enlarged entrance and a movable back wall that means it can hold an extra seven commercial layers. Its introduction further underpins the philosophy instilled by Albert Jansen that the company’s equipment should be designed first and foremost around meeting the needs of the bird.
For more free range news visit www.theranger.co.uk
