PHOTO: MANSSON
PHOTO: FABIAN BROCKÖTTER
PHOTO: MANSSON
FARM VISIT ▶▶▶
Full data integration gives peace of mind
When Mansson’s farm started egg production in 1981 with 21,000 birds, all house and production data could easily be logged in a simple Excel file. But as a growth path to the current level of 230,000 birds was plotted in the early 2000s, traditional data capture had reached its limits. Implementing Poultry Plan software provided full data integration for efficient flock and egg stream monitoring, giving peace of mind.
BY FABIAN BROCKÖTTER P
PROFILE Axel Mansson A/S
Brande, Denmark The Mansson farm operation covers about 2,000 hectares of or- ganic vegetable production, a biogas plant and has no less than 230,000 organic layers producing 72 million eggs per year. The farm has also started rearing its own pullets since last year.
oultry farms come in various sizes, small and large. A 230,000 bird layer farm is not your average ‘mom and pop’ farm anymore, nor is it the biggest of the lot, even by European standards. However, when
Mansson’s farm operations manager Claus Rasmussen de- scribes how he has organised the production of 72 million eggs a year, he quickly moves towards a blown-up map hanging on his office wall. At first glance the map of the rural area outside the Danish town of Brande mainly depicts the
2,000 hectares of organic vegetable production. A closer look reveals eight poultry houses, scattered within a 10 kilometre radius around the central farm and office location. Claus explains: “There are multiple reasons why our production is spread out over a larger area than other layer farms. The main reason is that we need 100 hectares of outdoor range for all our birds; that’s quite some space. And by spreading out the houses, we also create physical separation and disease protection.” According to the operations manager, each shed houses 30,000 birds under one roof. Internally the house is divided along the centre line, creating two separate houses with each side subdivided into five compartments to comply with organic regulations of having a maximum of 3,000 birds per pen. The same separation is continued in the wintergarten and the outdoor range. Rasmussen: “Each of our eight loca- tions is run as a stand-alone farm with a designated worker and equipment per location, dedicated feed delivery and egg pick up directly to the supermarket packing station. The whole farm is a multi-age operation but with a single age per house.”
Organic lay- ers need space, the two houses under one roof accom- modate 30,000 lay- ers.
10 ▶ POULTRY WORLD | No. 5, 2022
Organic fertilizer One layer house was always part of the Mansson farming op- eration. Vegetable farming had long been the main branch but the 21,000 free-range layers provided a good secondary source of income. When owner Axel Mansson grew his busi- ness, he saw opportunities to switch to organic vegetable production. However, he soon realised that organic fertilizer was hard to come by. That is when he decided to fill that void himself by changing his chicken operation to organic, too. “I started with organic egg production back in 1999. We had had free-range egg production since 1981, so it was not that big a step to move on to organic production,” Axel says. “I have always liked to see my animals being outside, so organic production also appeals to me in this respect,” Axel continues. Today, Mansson A/S has about 230,000 organic chickens and is thus one of the largest organic egg producers in Denmark, 1 in 5 organic eggs in the country is supplied by them. “Grow- ing agriculture is also a matter of knowledge development. This applies to organic agriculture, too. We have become wis- er and more experienced in that what we could not do a few years ago, we can do today. That’s what makes it so exciting to be a farmer: using one’s own experience to change and shape the future. My vision is to become 100% organic in the
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