Farmer Olivier Complain shows the free range broilers. They are 10 days before slaugher, which takes place at 84 days.
If he does not get them inside, they may fall prey to foxes, hedgehogs – who like the young chicks – or even villagers who sometimes just steal a chicken. “The police do nothing,” he complains. Altogther, the 1,100 broiler farmers in the re- gion lose about 140,000 birds a year. It’s the price they pay for free range. But Complain has another problem: the paper ti- ger. “Oh well, that’s no different anywhere else in the world,” he adds with a smile. Animal welfare may well be a focal point, but LDC Groupe CEO Gilles Huttepainde cannot predict what the future will
Poultry vet Martine Cottin (r), employed by the slaughterhouse, advises poultry farmers on reducing antibiotics.
bring for poultry welfare. “It is very uncertain.” He draws a tri- angle to illustrate the factors on which development de- pends: a good price, society’s willingness to pay extra and welfare demands. Ideally, these three factors will overlap in the middle of the triangle. “However, no one knows whether that will actually happen.” LDC Groupe nevertheless fully em- braces welfare. Now, about 25% of its poultry farmer mem- bers operate under the ‘welfare’ label. The company wants all its members to comply with the strict demands of Nature d’Eleveur by 2050 (see box).
Constantly looking for innovations
Poultry farmer Julien Leballeur (32) switched to a new way of populating his welfare poultry house with broilers. Not with chicks, but with breeding eggs instead. It’s a remarka- ble sight: the floor scattered with broken eggshells and chicks scratching around happily in the warm poultry house. They hatched only a few hours ago and can already manage to find their way to the feeders. A scientific institute in Tours conducted tests with hatched eggs. The researchers showed that is better for the chicks’ welfare to hatch inside the poul- try house. It causes less stress and, supposedly, less mortali- ty. The poultry farmer recalls that he had 1% mortality due to eggs that did not hatch and chicks that were not viable. It is not the first time that Leballeur has done pioneering work. His 2010 poultry house was the first to have large windows, perches and more space for the chickens than
needed. Soon, he will go from 19 to 15 chicks per m2 . There
are demands to save the environment as well, to integrate the farms into the landscape, to use French feed and French birds and to have a 10 cm thick layer of straw on the floor as litter. There are also measures to prevent disease as much as possible without the use of antibiotics and anti-coccidiosis. Music in the poultry house is new, as well as pecking stones with added vitamins and toys for the birds. The supply of eggs, already sexed in ovo, is another recent development. Leballeur operates under the Nature d’Eleveurs (Nature poultry farmers) welfare label founded by the LDC Groupe. He does good business. “In addition to poultry, I also have beef cattle, finishers and arable farming. Thanks to the fixed price agreements with the slaughterhouse and feed company, I get the best financial results from my poultry.”
▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 6, 2020 13
PHOTOS: HANS SIEMES
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