Big Dutchman

The Dutch trade magazine "Pluimveehouderij" recently published a report about William van Leendert. Though the long-time Big Dutchman customer always was a strong supporter of cage management, in August 2005 he switched to alternative laying hen production in his new large three-story tall building. "The political situation and bad egg prices are just two of the reasons why I changed the production method" he said.


William van Leendert: „I took advantage of the political and economical situation and opted for floor production“.

His farm in Tienray (close to the town of Venlo) does not look like a traditional poultry farm. The large buildings, painted in dark-green and white, an elegant office behind a fence give a rather industrial appearance.


The poultry farm looks more like an industrial complex.


To comply with fire protection requirements, William van Leendert had to erect a seven metre high fire division wall between the new building and the laying cage house.

"I want to be different from others and I want to produce differently than others. My operation is different, I am different“. This headstrong work ethic and method is apparent not only on the entire farm but also in the way van Leendert does his business and with whom.

A couple of years ago William and his father were still active in broiler production. In 1993 the large production unit was remodelled to house 175,000 laying hens in Big Dutchman Eurovent cages. In 2000, William took over the farm from his father. Step by step he expanded the farm.

Just recently a new three-story (!) tall, 116 m long, 24 m wide and 8 m high shed for laying hens in floor management was completed. 2 tiers are already equipped with a Natura Floor System from Big Dutchman. For the time being, the upper tier remains empty “until egg prices go up again” says van Leendert. The entire house can hold 120,000 birds altogether. At the moment, the barn is only half full.


The top floor is still empty.


The two lower tiers of the new floor production barn are completely equipped with Big Dutchman equipment.

Van Leendert chose Big Dutchman for its good quality, the clear design of the NATURA system and because of the Colony 2+ nest. An additional reason for his choice was the good experience he had with BD cage systems and his long-time relationship with Versleijen, local BD distributor.


Cross section 3 tier floor production.

The van-Leendert-Farm is indeed a special farm. Just the size alone speaks for itself: counting all tiers together, the entire operation has a surface area of 1.8 hectares. Every week, an average of 400 tons of freight are taken to and from the farm (feed, eggs, manure).

By the way: William van Leendert sells his eggs on a weekly basis as free poultry producer without a contract to the highest bidder.

If you would like to learn more about the van-Leendert-Farm, visit www.vanleendertbv.com

Hillandale-Gettysburg, LP in Gettysburg, PA has contracted with Hershey Equipment once again. This time to remodel six layer houses and equip them with 7 tiers, 7 rows, 568' long of Big Dutchman Univent 568A cage layer systems. Each building will have a 221,872 bird capacity.

Hillandale has three sites. Site 1 was remodeled through Hershey with 6 tier, 7 row Stak air systems including collectors and manure drives. That project was started in 2002 and completed 2004. There are six poultry houses housing 1.0m birds. Big Dutchman US (through Hershey Equipment) received an order to expand one of these houses by two tiers in May 2006.

Site 2 was built from 1999 through 2001. The site has six houses with 6 tiers and 7 row cages, that house 1.0m birds. House 12A was added in 2004 to site 2. It has 8 tier, 7 row Univent 568A cages.

Site 3 was started in 2005. This site has 7 row, 7 tier Univent 568A cages. At this point, four poultry houses are complete and the fifth house is being installed. Used equipment is being taken out of house 6 to begin renovations and equipment is being delivered for that house now. Site 3 will also have 1.0m birds when completed.


The following photos illustrate this project:




The above photos depict eggs moving from the chicken houses by conveyor to the egg packing room, where eggs are washed, weighed, graded and packed, then sent to the cooler to be picked up and delivered to stores.




Big Dutchman Univent cages set and ready for doors.






Scrapers scrape manure onto manure belts, where it is dried and hauled to the back of the building for removal.

Big Dutchman is the worldwide market leader in housing and feeding systems for modern poultry production. The company’s product program ranges from simple systems via computer-controlled systems through to turn-key projects. Big Dutchman offers environment-friendly, feed saving cages for layers, rearing birds and breeders, with or without air ducts, and safe feed, egg and drinking systems. Floor management systems for both broilers and breeders, and modern climate concepts are further examples of the complete Big Dutchman program.

Univent is one of the most popular manure belt batteries in Big Dutchman's product program. Univent has wire partitions and is available from 3 to 8 tiers with or without manure drying. It is also available using the new Galfan-coated wire, providing up to three times longer life-span compared to wire galvanized after welding.

The Colony 2+ poultry nest is Big Dutchman’s newest ‘big seller’. In the UK alone, more than one million hens are laying their eggs in this type of nest. The impressive one-million-limit has now been exceeded, stated Philip Dye, Managing Director of the British Big Dutchman distributor Newquip Ltd. with David Edwards, Area Sales Manager for the North of England recently selling his one hundredth house of nests. 

“In the last twelve months the equivalent of more than 3 km of nests were installed for our customers in the UK,” confirmed Philip. “Which is an impressive achievement when you take into consideration that Big Dutchman also sells other types of nests, such as the popular “moving backwall” nest, which are not included in this calculation.”

The innovative Colony2+ nest is the newly developed automatic family nest for broiler and layer breeders as well as for layers. For the first time ever, a revolutionary divided tilting nest floor has been combined with a center belt to ensure optimum egg quality. Before the double tilting nest floor automatically closes the nest for the night, all eggs are able to roll off smoothly backwards onto the belt. This unique mechanism ensures that no eggs are left in the nest and prevents birds from sleeping or brooding inside thus soiling the nest. Moreover, the daily dust drops off the nest floor improving more nest hygiene.

Without doubt, Padrino Vilela S.A. farm in Madrid, Spain belongs to one of the largest laying farms in Europe. With a surface of 2,676 sqm, the house provides space for 190,000 birds, meaning 72 birds/sqm and thus setting a record,  particularly regarding the guidelines of the European Union and the corresponding prescribed enlargement of the cage surface per hen. For the sake of completeness we have to add that upon taking effect of the directive on the keeping of laying hens on 1st January 2012, the number of hens housed will be reduced to 135,000 birds, since from that time on a maximum number of 51 birds / sqm is prescribed.

The system started to operate in December 2004 in Padrino Vilela, a S.A. farm in the heart of poultry production in Madrid. The farm is located in Valdemoro, South of Madrid and up to now had four laying houses and a rearing house as well as an egg packaging centre with warehouse.
The laying houses are equipped with a cage type that has generally been used in the past 10 years.
The entire farm is equipped for 700,000 laying hens and the egg grader has a capacity of 120,000 eggs/hour.

The poultry house


View of the recently inaugurated Padrino Vilela house from the front. The air is leaving the house here through the tunnel ventilation.

The striking feature of this house is its dimensions: length 101 m, width 26.5 m and height at eaves 8.6 m, respectively 12.0 m at the ridge.
The bricks of this house have been laid by the company itself and it is surrounded by paved ways. The building is "closed", i.e. the environment is completely controlled as the veterinarian and owner of the farm, Luis Padrino Cifuentes, wants it to be. This is the only way to design the climate in an optimum way and it is extremely important particularly in case of the large number of hens housed.
Depending on the outside temperature and the season, the ventilation system can be controlled in two different ways:

- Negative pressure ventilation in winter: In this case, the air enters the house via flaps in the gable walls of the house and is redirected by deflectors, while the flaps in the lower part of the wall ensure air intake close to the floor. The air leaves the house via the ridge.

- Tunnel ventilation in summer: In this case, the air enters the house exclusively via the air inlets on the first 6 metres of the gable wall and is drawn through the house by 40 fans located at the opposite side of the house.



The view hardly reaches the opposite side of the house of 101 m length ... We are located on the access catwalk to the upper five tiers.

In the last mentioned case, evaporative cooling takes effect in the house, by water spraying through nozzles close to the air inlets. The fans have a total capacity of 1.8 million m3 / hour. This corresponds to approx. 160 l / min / hen and thus is more than sufficient even during the hottest hours of the day for this location.
Throughout the year, ventilation is completed through adding air in between the cages and on each tier. This air blows over the manure belts to dry the manure. For this purpose, two large air mixers - 6 x 1.8 x 1.8 m – have been additionally installed at the two highest points at the outmost ends of the house. Inside the air mixers, a flexible deflector is installed controlling via servomotor the shares of warm house air and fresh outside air in the mixer.
The entire ventilation system is controlled by a computer, which is provided with data from eight sensors installed at different points in the house. Since a power shortcut with this large bird number could have severe consequences, there is also an automatic generator for cases of emergency.
Another important feature is the installation of a lighting system. It consists of protected SL light bulbs, installed at a distance of three metres at different heights in each of the two sections, thus ensuring an uniform illumination. Upon the installation of these lamps, it has been taken into consideration that they were not installed between the cages directly above the laying nests so that the nests are located in penumbra favouring egg deposit.

Furnished cages from Big Dutchman

New on this farm are the furnished cages by Big Dutchman, and to be precise, the model EV 625A-EU. This is the first system of its kind in Spain. The special feature about this model is that it does not have to be modified in 2012, when EU directive 1999/74/CE comes into force. Other cage systems of this supplier or others up to now had to be updated to meet EU standards.

The first striking feature when entering the house is the height of the cages. The system has ten tiers with a catwalk made of metal grids at the fifth tier according to legal provisions. This way, the system has a total height of 7.5 m, also accommodating the regulations of the European Union by leaving 35 cm free space between the floor and the first tier as well as between the fifth tier and the catwalk.


View to the rear row end with the new elevators transporting the eggs of each row onto the cross belt located above.

The house has nine cage sections or double rows, each of which has a width of 1.69 m. The aisles between the individual sections have a width of 1.10 m and are thus wide enough, since the EU directive prescribes only a width of 0.9 m. Please find following the main characteristics of the cages:

- Size and capacity: Each compartment has a size of 2,412 x 625 mm and comprises four cabins. This adds up to a bird number of 20 hens with the compulsory 750 cm² per bird as of 2012. Presently, the cage could still be stocked with 27 birds per compartment at a density of 550 cm2/bird, if this is in accordance with the number of feeding places.

- Feed is supplied by means of the well-known automatic chain feeding system from the company Big Dutchman, who has designed this system. It has a very fast drive (12 m/min) to avoid bridging and feed losses, when the feed is transported through the house of approx. 100 m length. It takes more or less 8 minutes for the system to travel this distance. In case of the above mentioned stocking density, the length of the feed trough also corresponds to the EU directives (12 cm per bird), which is also the limiting factor for a higher bird number, since with the current regulations of 10 cm per bird the maximum stocking density per compartment is 24 birds. Provided that the current regulations will not be further modified, it means that today's bird numbers will be reduced by 20 % from 2012 on.



View to the rear row end; here the collected manure drops down on the cross belt which is located below the floor grid.

- Drinkers: Each compartment disposes of 6 nipple drinkers located at the longitudinal separation between the two central cabins with either a sand bath or a nest. Nipple drinkers are supplied by feeder lines. At the end of each row and on each tier the lines are equipped with breather tubes, through which the farm manager can see by means of a small float if the water level is o.k. or if there is any problem.

- Nest: One of the key points of the EU directive is the laying nest. This Big Dutchman system has a laying nest located at the outer end of the compartment. The walls of the nest touch the nest wall of the neighbouring compartments. The nest entrance is covered by an orange plastic curtain. The diagram below illustrates this design and gives a view on the remaining parts of the equipment.



Diagram of the break down of two adjacent compartments.

- Egg collection: The system is equipped with an egg saver wire stopping the eggs below the feed chain and loosened at regular intervals so that the eggs can roll off slowly onto the egg belt. Due to the neighbouring position of the laying nests, the largest part of egg deposit — approx. 90% — effectively takes place in this area. Since the hens favour this part of the system for egg deposit, approx. 50% of all eggs directly reach the egg belt; the others are "collected" by a mechanism and guided to the egg collection system in a orderly manner. This little „trick“ has two advantages: Since the egg does not directly reach the egg belt, it has a reduced speed leading to less egg cracks. Moreover, eggs have enough time to dry in this position and are less soiled by dust.

- Sand bath: In real life, this rather controversial "bath" is not really what it is supposed to be, but rather a square mat of approx. 15 x 15 cm, located at half the height opposite the nest. Since it is very difficult to distribute sand via the tube system on the central axis between two cages, Big Dutchman recommends simply using feed instead of sand, which can either be consumed directly by the birds or absorbed by the mat or the „Astroturf“ insert located directly below the sand bath. This solution allows abstaining from a separate storage facility for the sand, saw dust or other material, since the feed is simply taken from the regular feed troughs.

- Bottom: As in all cages, the bottom consists of a metal wire with a mesh width of 1“ x 1.5“, bearing on tension wires. The nest area has the same bottom without mat, but with a plastic coating instead. The plastic bottom has an increased flexibility which is a decisive advantage particularly at the moment of egg depositing. The nest has an inclination of 12% with the front part of the nest directly below the egg saver wire even more inclined to allow eggs possibly staying there to simply roll off safely in the direction of the egg belt.

- Perches: The perches consist of two oval plastic rods with flattened top running parallel to the aisle above the two central cabins of the compartment. Another perch is located in the same cabin as the sand bath. The total length of the perches is 3,015 cm, corresponding to the prescribed 15 cm perch length per hen.

- Claw shortening device: The device has been prescribed for all cages since January 2003 and in this system, it consists of stripes of silicon carbide, glued to the rear sheet metal of the feed trough in two of the cabins. The glue bond is perfect in preventing the occurrence of hiding places for red lice, which are a severe problem in many systems.

- Manure removal: Manure is collected on PP belts and transported to the end of the row, where it drops down into a manure pit. From there, the manure is transported outside of the house by means of a rubber slide over an inclined surface to be charged on trucks. The interesting feature about this system is the manure belt ventilation. Thanks to the stream of air blown over the manure from two air mixers via tubes between the cage rows on each tier, upon leaving the house manure has a dry matter content of approx. 65%.

… but that is not all

A very important characteristic of this system is the ruggedness of the cages, which is not only due to the major experience Big Dutchman has with this kind of system, but also to the thickness of sheet metal for the trough and the entire „skeleton“ of the system. To facilitate access to the two upper cage rows on both tiers, the house disposes of a slide running between the aisles and significantly facilitating the daily check-up walks. The extraordinary stability of the trough allows climbing on it in case of a problem. In the manure removal system a manure scraper cleans the manure belt at the end of each row on each tier where the manure drops down onto the cross belt, before the belt is returning into the house to prevent further intrusion of dirt.



View on the egg roll-off opening below the feed trough with egg saver wire.

Another interesting detail in this respect is the manure belt tensioner located at the end of each manure belt line. The task of this tensioner is to keep the manure belt constantly under tension to ensure a uniform and straight operation. At the end of the manure removal unit there are also some rollers installed lifting the manure belt slightly at the sides to give it a convex shape so that the manure can easily drop down from the manure belt to the cross conveyor.

Egg belts are moved upon egg collection by a chain drive. If these are set in motion to transport the eggs to the collecting point, they are stopped at the row end at the so called elevator, transporting the eggs either upwards or downwards to the fifth tier from where the cross collection takes them to the packaging unit. The egg collection system has a capacity of 80,000 eggs/hour, which means that the entire daily output of eggs can be collected and transported to the warehouse within two hours or less if operated continuously. Eggs are then graded by a Moba XF 330 system. Cracked eggs are automatically detected and sorted out. Remaining eggs are labelled individually and packed on pallets. All this is done fully automatically, without human action.



Side cabin of a cage compartment with sand bath and „Astroturf" mat located below to collect possible feed remains.

Finally, the system has four metal feed bins with a capacity of 25 tons each, also supplied by Big Dutchman. At first glance this seems to be a lot but with the current bird number this is barely enough to provide the hens with feed for one week.

Although this farm seems to be already quite large, it has not yet reached the maximum system length possible with the Big Dutchman cages described above. Maximum system length for a comparable installation is 150 m that is 1.5 times the length of the house described. Even if the house was not modified in width, a quarter million hens could be kept in only one house.

Heinz Ostkotte, poultry manager from Werne, Germany, recently commissioned a new layer house with a new grading room. The new house is extraordinary because each of its two levels holds 15,000 hens in floor management. Big Dutchman’s NATURA modular system, which allows for effective utilisation of multiple levels, made it possible to design a custom-made solution for both levels.

Heinz Ostkotte, who had already dealt with eggs in his younger days during his schooling in the field of business administration, has a passion for the poultry business. He has run an independent business since starting out with a leased establishment in 1980 and in 1990, he built his first house, which was - at that time - equipped with cages.

Today, there are not only poultry houses on Ostkotte’s premises, but also a grain drying plant and the feed mill he uses to produce the feed for his layers. For this, he grows primarily wheat and corn, which he uses as feed basis, on approx. 70 hectares of crop land.

Heinz Ostkotte also pulls the strings in the area of marketing. With two self-owned market stalls and through several small merchants he sells the eggs in the nearby Ruhr Area around the cities of Hamm, Dortmund and Unna.



Due to the excellent location of his business – the closeness to the markets, especially in the area of direct marketing, is still an important factor - and due to the high product quality that has given him a good reputation with his customers, the question of expansion arose a couple of months ago.

Since the new directive for the protection of laying hens will not allow any more cage rearing in Germany from 2006, the only possibility left was floor management. „First, I gained experience from colleagues“, says the competent businessman about his introduction into this unfamiliar area. That included trips to the nearby Netherlands, to balance out advantages and disadvantages of the different management systems and to find the ideal solution for his own business.

One thing quickly became clear: the new house should not house only 1000 layer hens, as this would not meet the increasing customer demand.

And since building land is expensive, the idea of a two-level house, equipped with Big Dutchman’s flexible NATURA modular system for the best possible economy of space, was born. The NATURA-system allowed the realisation of a custom-made solution for both levels and, with it, the optimum stocking density on a house base of two times 50 x 26 m.

Big Dutchman has already equipped more than 4.5 million layer places in several European countries with the NATURA-system. The NATURA concept offers the birds a structured living space with supply area (feed and water), resting area, laying area and scratch area. This permits an optimum adaption to natural habits and also creates the best possible conditions for a high laying performance and a low amount of floor eggs. Another important factor for the producer is the significantly reduced need for monitoring.

Another feature that is worth mentioning in the new Ostkotte house is the integrated laying poultry nest Colony 2+. The tilting nest floor of the Big Dutchman group laying nest reduces the cleaning requirements to a minimum and closes the nest during the night.

Last but not least, the good house climate has been emphasized in Werne as well. Negative pressure ventilation, consisting of air-inlet valves and exhaust air chimneys, provides fresh air in the new layer house. The air inlet valves are installed on both side walls, where 8 exhaust air chimneys extract the used air from both levels upwards. This is made possible by the open intermediate ceiling underneath the NATURA system. The whole system is controlled by a modern Big Dutchman climate computer.