The seasonal egg production, quality and profitability of a commercial layer farm with different cage density in subtropical environment

Abstract

The environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity and cage density in the hen house are the most important factors to provide a profitable egg production. The feed conversion increases, more eggs are produced when the environmental conditions in the hen house are set to provide a themioneutral zone. The objective of this study is to determine effects of seasonal and cage density differences on profit of a commercial layer farm. This study was carried out for 8 weeks in Summer, 8 weeks in Fall and 8 weeks in Winter at a commercial layer farm in Bursa Province of Turkey. It has 5500 Isa Brown layers on a high-rise cage system. The seasonal production costs and entrepreneurial returns of the layer farm are calculated for each cage density. Significant differences among seasons are observed with different in. door environmental conditions, hen-day egg production, feed consumption, mortality and characteristics of egg quality (p<0.01). Feed and labor costs are the most important parts of the production cost. Feed costs change with seasons and cage densities. Feed costs for cages with 5 hens are higher than feed costs for cages with 4 hens. If eggs were sold with classification, the layer farm would gam. approximately 10% more income in Summer, The benefit-cost ratios, calculated to determine economic efficiency, reach the highest level for cages with four hens in Fall. In this season, each $1 cost in the egg production brought $1.193 gross return for the layer farm.