Our third interview took place in Winschoten in the north of Holland, at Mirjam en Jurjen. They have a farm in which chickens and cocks are prepared for the slaughter. After two" animal friendly" farms we'd like to see a so-called bio-industry farm.  

In this farm are 65000 chickens and cocks. (The cocks grows a bit faster but you don't see that in this farm) The breeds they keep ‘Ros’ and ‘Kop’.  The farmer is looking for an other breed because the present chickens have been keep in such a way that the breed is  vulnerable for diseases
There are two barns, one is 16x90 m and the other is 21x85, making 3100 m2 in total. On each square meter some 20 chickens are raised. Officially you can only keep 18 chickens on a square meter but because of the building of the new barn, they couldn't raise chickens for some time.  So they are allowed to keep more chickens on a square meter. Next time there will be 61000 chickens instead of 65000.  
The farm is about 20 years old but the present owners are here about 2 years. Before they lived together with the parents of Jurjen at a farm for agriculture , but it was very hard to keep up so they started a chicken farm. Jurjen got no special training, but he only gets help of the food supplier. 

How do they keep the chickens
Six times a year there is a new load one day chickens that came out of the eggs the same day. They cost about 58 Dutch cents each. By heaters and fans they keep the temperature at 32 deg Centigrade the first weeks, that is a favourable temperature for the chickens. The older they are the lower the temperatures. The most important thing is to adapt the temperature in the barn when you think you can't live in that barn your self. So if it's too cold, too hot or too stifling you have to change the climate. In the beginning the chickens get is starter feed. There are extra nutrients in it for the first two weeks. The chickens can eat and drink as much as they want, average they eat about 97000 kg feed in every week when they're in the farm. Everything is manage by a computer, drinking water goes trough pipes with nipples, if the chickens push on them they get water. The feed comes by means of transport lines in big trunks, then it goes trough spirals into the troughs, if the through get empty a sensor takes care of a signal to the computer which will send feed to the troughs. After a while they get normal food with more vitamins and minerals, the last 1 or 2 weeks they get fattening feed.  They stay at the farm for 6 to 7 weeks, than they're ready to be slaughtered. To catch them is rather difficult. Normal there's 14 hours of light in the barns. When the chickens have to be caught, all lights go out. Only a few dimmers are on. All chickens are very quiet then. If you don't do so the chickens join together, and a number will be pressed to death. The catchers can see enough of the chickens. The weight of the chickens is 1.5 till 2 kg. You earn per chickens about f 3,20. Sometimes they are transported in plastic crates 5 chickens in each, This is very animal unkind so the owners prefer a container with drawers. They usually go to a slaughter in Weesp. When all the chickens have left, the barns are cleaned and are ready for the next shift.  

Diseases
We were anxious to know about diseases in the farm and how they manage that. The most frequent diseases are Salmonella; this is a bacterium, which is mostly scattered by the vet, by food, infected eggs and trucks, and the bird plague, which is mostly scattered by other birds.  
Two times a day Jurjen walks through the barns, to look at the chickens, between 8 and 9 o'clock in the morning and between 7 and 8 o'clock in the evening. The sick and dead animals are pick out and he also looks if everything is all right. If all chickens are at the side of the barn, it's too hot and if all chickens stay close together it's too cold. You have to notice the behaviour too, maybe they are quieter as normal. The farmer has to feel this and it is a part of the knowledge he has . When a disease break out, all chickens get medicines by the drinking system. The dead chickens are put in a cold storage container first, and after a while the dead bodies are collected .  
The chickens and 's produce about 25 till 30 ton dung. Other than in normal situations here the dung is spread out on the land of the farm of Jurjen’s father. That's free, when you carry of the dung it would cost about 600 Dutch guilders for one container.  
This combination of two farms will be very attractive in the future.  

We discovered a number of things It is not a very difficult and hard job because many things are computerized,  expect when the chickens are send away, you're busy all night. Also you can take a holiday, we'd never thought this was possible. You've got a Beeper so you'll hear when something's wrong. Then you can go home or maybe there's somebody near your farm who can do something.  
We don't know if this is really a bio-industry farm. They can't go outside because there's no climate-controle outside like in a barn. And chickens like to be nice and warm. And they still have enough space to scratch.  
  On our next page you can read why the bio-industry is unattractive