Pad cooling systems have been introduced to 10 percent of layer farms in Taiwan, and increased their revenues by about NT$15,000 per 10,000 egg-laying hens per month, the Taiwan Livestock Research Institute said yesterday, urging poultry farmers to join the transformation to boost productivity.
Institute Director-General Huang Jeng-fang (黃振芳) yesterday said that the Ministry of Agriculture has been developing techniques that could advance the process of layer breeding and chicken manure management to increase egg production and reduce contamination amid extreme weather and bird flu.
Department of Animal Industry Deputy Director-General Chou Chih-hsun (周志勳) said the annual output of domestically produced eggs is about NT$34 billion (US$1.18 billion) and annual egg per capita consumption has reached 355.
Photo: CNA
The rearing of pullets, or young hens, could affect the production and quality of eggs, he said.
Institute associate researcher and veterinarian Tsai Ming-yang (蔡銘洋) said that pullets’ development would decide their egg laying ability and affect egg farmers’ income.
Traditional henhouses have low production efficiency and are susceptible to epizootic diseases due to the lack of proper biosecurity measures, he said.
Chicken manure accumulate under henhouses for years, leading to messy and foul-smelling environments, Tsai said, adding that there are concerns over the welfare of hens reared in such environments.
However, many egg farmers are old and are less willing to invest in new equipment to renovate their henhouses, he said.
The institute has conducted 32 on-site visits and four training sessions to promote the introduction of advanced management techniques, he said.
Biosecurity measures and health management methods introduced to pullet sheds proved effective in improving egg production, increasing pullets’ weight by 45g on average, Tsai said.
The adoption of pad cooling systems also increased the egg-laying rate from 75.8 percent to 89.4 percent, or a 13.6 percent rise, he said.
That means the daily output value per 10,000 laying hens rose by NT4,900, yielding an additional NT$150,000 in monthly revenue, Tsai added.
Advanced henhouses with smart pad cooling systems have better ventilation and can maintain temperatures at 25°C, he said.
They are also equipped with automatic devices that can collect eggs and record chickens’ age, egg-laying rates, and feed and water consumption amounts, saving significant human labor, Tsai said.
Automatic equipment that can dehydrate chicken manure and turn it into granular fertilizer was also adopted, minimizing fly infestations and foul smells, he added.
The turning of chicken manure into fertilizer generated an extra output of NT$300 million annually, he said.
Asked whether the ministry would subsidize traditional henhouse renovation, department official Chen Chih-wei (陳志維) said a NT$1.6 billion budget has been allocated to aid the upgrading of poultry farms over three years from 2023 to this year.
The introduction of pad cooling systems to a farm could be subsidized with NT$10 million, he said, adding that about 10 percent of henhouses nationwide have adopted the system.
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