‘It is always my challenge to feed on the cutting edge’ Jeroen Rohaan from Enter in the Dutch province of Overijssel has a layer farm with 66,000 aviary hens and 30,000 free-range hens on 16 hectares of land. Since 2000, Jeroen and his family have lived at this location after taking over the farm from Jeroen’s parents. He uses split feeding to improve the already low feed conversion rate even more.
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n 2000, Rohaan still kept dairy cattle and laying hens, but after selling the cattle, he invested in the expansion of the layer farm. With the most recent investment last year: an extension from 65,000 to 96,000 hens was realised by adding an extra floor to the aviary house. ‘There used to be a lot of rivers and streams in this area, creating a very variable soil for the first few meters. Building a multi-storey poultry house starting at one and a half meters below surface level was cheaper than investing in soil improvement and constructing a single-storey house on it.’ Rohaan supplies eggs to egg trading company Hennes Euskirchen. A small number of the eggs are sold at a home sales point. ‘It is always my challenge to feed on the cutting edge’, says Rohaan. ‘A feed conversion of 2.05 is not strange to me. I do feed more luxurious feed, which is
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necessary with such a low feed conversion, especially in the first six months. In those first 30 weeks, the hens must be able to develop optimally. To get enough robustness in the hen and a good resistance, a more luxurious feed is a must for me.’ Challenge of new feeding system He uses split feeding: the hens receive a different feed in the morning than in the afternoon. Peter Venhuis, laying poultry specialist at ForFarmers, has been a familiar face on Rohaan’s farm for years: ‘With SplitFeeding we feed even more according to the needs of the hens; 40% of the feed is given in the morning and is high in protein, the afternoon feed is high in calcium because that is when the shell is formed.’
POULTRY NL 2022
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