Entering the poultry-fattening business

In the North-Rhine Westphalian town of Nordwalde in Germany, the Sanderink family has built two completely new poultry houses. Broiler breeding is a completely new business sector for the family, though many years ago the husband's parents had bred layers. However, until now there had never been plans to enter the business of poultry fattening as an additional business base. The decision by the Sanderink family to invest in this sector was made after they had taken a close look at the poultry market and its future prospects. The family soon recognised that the broiler business could be quite profitable, especially as the demand for poultry meat has been rising continually for many years. The Sanderink family considered the various housing systems, including that at the farm of Stephan Wesseler (see SYSTEM//TECHNIK May 2011). The AgriFarmControl system used there in conjunction with the SCHULZ ManagementSupport programme convinced the Nordwalde team immediately. Precisely those new to this sector benefit from this intelligent technology. AgriFarmControl is the basis for the new agricultural-product line from SCHULZ Systemtechnik. Using this system, all devices can be networked with each other and operated centrally. As a result, farmers profit from numerous additional possibilities and simplifications. The heart of the system is a touch-panel PC on which all important operational elements are displayed. The panel's extremely attractive design facilitates intuitive operation of all functions in the livestock housing unit through simple touching. And using an internet interface and modern IP camera technology the system can also be remotely controlled via iPhone, iPad and co. The ManagementSupport programme from SCHULZ offers purchasers of new livestock-housing systems professional support in the form of an agricultural specialist for the first two housing run-throughs. After all, following completion of their completely new livestock-housing systems, livestock farmers need to be able to manage their new investment without any difficulty. Because in terms of housing climate, lighting programme and watering and feed control there are a great many matters to be attended to in order to ensure optimum operational management. The  Visbek agricultural experts were commissioned by the Sanderink family to build two poultry housing units, each to accommodate 40,000 animals. SCHULZ supplied the complete housing facilities, covering climate control, feeding, watering technology, lighting, animal weighing and electrical engineering. "For the feeding process, the new poultry keepers have put their faith in our proven feed bowls", explains product manager Marco Kreienborg. "In order to safeguard uniform feed quality we selected an end-monitoring bowl." As daily practice shows that animals often pay less attention to bowls situated at the end of a line, we fit those bowls with separate lighting. As a result, consumption of feed from those bowls is normalised and all animals are regularly provided with fresh feed.