made. “Either we had to make some changes or plan our exit from the organic egg business,” he says. After considerable research and discussion, the family chose to upgrade their operation with a 10year horizon in mind. “We were still making a good living from the organic egg business,” and “we also realized that eggs, being a fairly easy-going kind of enterprise, were something we could do in our older years,” Poechman says. He also discovered that a new and higher capacity and fully automated aviary system was not as costly as he had thought. The new model also could be adapted to his ’60s era chicken barn saving him considerable money. In 2016, with an all-clear from Farm Credit Canada, the Poechmans forged ahead. They opted for a stateof-the-art cage-free tiered aviary system designed by the German firm, Hellmann Poultry Company and called the Pro 10. According to Hellmann, ease for the birds and the producer was one of the prerequisites for the development of the system. All tiers are outfitted with feeders, waterers, nests, egg belts, and manure conveyances. A two-tier version of the Pro 10 was perfect for the height of the family’s layer barn. A salesperson tried to sell them on a three-tier aviary to accommodate substantially more birds. But it would have meant greater modification of the barn and what Poechman believed would be over-crowding on the floor. Also, he says, “we’re not greedy” and doubling the capacity of the previous 3,000-layer operation was quite sufficient. In the summer of 2017, a design assembly specialist from Hellmann’s spent several weeks on site overseeing the installation of the new system. A team of local casual labourers was hired to help with construction. There were a few snags with the complex assembly, but in the end the system came together and continues to function well. Poechman’s characteristic innovation didn’t end with the new, more efficient, and higher capacity aviary. Aware of the growing interest among the eating public for pastured
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