EP0963155A1

EP0963155A1 - Poultry farming unit

Info

Publication number: EP0963155A1
Application number: EP98902008A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Tauno Mäkelä
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1997-02-03
Filing date: 1998-01-30
Publication date: 1999-12-15
Also published as: FI970444A0; WO1998033376A1; AU5867098A; FI100503B

Abstract

The invention relates to a poultry farming unit comprising an egg-laying room (1) to be opened for the time of egg laying and to be kept closed with a gate (4) at other times. The poultry farming unit further comprises a common room (2) in communication with the egg-laying room (1), equipped with means (11 to 14) for providing the well-being of the poultry. The poultry farming unit includes a bathing room (3) being in communication with the other compartments of the poultry farming unit and equipped with padding sawdust on its bottom.

Description

Poultry farming unit

The invention relates to a poultry farming unit, comprising an egg-laying room to be opened for the time of egg-laying and to be kept closed with a gate at other times, and a common room in communication with the egg-laying room, equipped with means for providing for the well-being of the poultry.

The general construction and principles of henhouses, in which the poultry farming unit according to the invention can be used, have been known for a long time in the production of eggs. Henhouses of this kind have usually e.g. about 20 to 30 nests placed one after the other, whereby the length of the whole henhouse is about 50 metres. Outside the rows of nests in the henhouse, in its longitudinal direction, there is a wire mesh based, so-called wire mesh room where the chickens stay at other than egg-laying times. The wire mesh room is equipped with means for providing for the well-being of the poultry. These means include normal food and drinking vessels as well as perch structures. In the middle of the henhouse, on either or both sides, there are egg conveyors, onto which the eggs laid in the egg-laying room and occasionally in the wire mesh room are transferred for transportation to one end of the henhouse for further processing of the eggs. Normally, the egg- laying room is kept open for egg-laying during the time of daylight when the gate of the egg-laying room is in the open position. The gate of the egg-laying room is opened automatically about 15 minutes before the lights are turned on in the henhouse. In the evening, the gate pushes gently the hens staying in the nests from the nests for the time of the night and simultaneously closes the communication between the wire mesh room and the egg-laying room so that the hens cannot stay overnight in the egg-laying room but the roosting of the hens takes place in the wire mesh room forming the common room.

A problem with the above-described henhouse solution has been ex- pressly the fact that they have not been able to provide in a satisfactory way for the need of the chickens to clean themselves, which has entailed a reduction in egg production as well as quality problems. The purpose of the present invention is to introduce a poultry farming unit which provides for the needs involved in the natural instinct of chickens to clean themselves. The purpose of the poultry farming unit according to the invention is to improve the well-being of chickens, whereby egg production is increased simultaneously with securing the egg quality standard thanks to the fact that the general standard of hygiene in the poultry farming unit can be maintained high. For achieving these purposes, the poultry farming unit of the invention is primarily characterized in that the poultry farming unit includes a bathing room being in communication with the other rooms and equipped with padding sawdust on its bottom. The bathing room makes it possible that the chickens in the poultry farming unit can continuously utilize the bathing room, wherein the egg-laying room as well as the common room reserved for the chickens, the so-called wire mesh room, are kept clean. The quantity and quality level of eggs produced in the egg-laying room is high, because the chickens are in good form and clean. A requirement is naturally that the feeding and drinking in the common room, i.e. the so-called wire mesh room, and other operations of the poultry farming unit are normal.

Some advantageous embodiments of the poultry farming unit according to the invention are presented in the appended dependent claims.

In the following description, the construction and operation of the poul- try farming unit of the invention will be described in more detail with reference to the example shown in the appended drawings. In the drawings,

Fig. 1 shows a horizontal cross-sectional view on an advanta- geous module unit application of the poultry farming unit according to the invention,

Fig. 2 illustrates the cross-section II — II of Fig. 1 , and

Fig. 3 shows a vertical cross-section of the poultry farming unit constituting module units according to Figs. 1 and 2. With particular reference to Fig. 1 , the poultry farming unit according to the invention is arranged as a module unit M comprising a combination of an egg-laying room 1 , a common room 2 and a bathing room 3, limited by outer walls. As illustrated in Fig. 1 , the module unit M, seen from above, has a rectangular form, whereby the common room 2 or the so- called wire mesh section has the length of the longer side PS of the rectangular form and the width of about a half of the shorter side LS of the rectangular form. The egg-laying compartment 1 and the bathing compartment 3 are placed one after the other on the longer side of the common compartment 2, having a substantially equal square area, whereby their total length is equal to the length of the longer side PS of the rectangular form of the module unit. The total width of the compartments 1 and 3 is substantially equal to one half of the length of the shorter side LS of the module unit M. One advantageous design for the module unit is the following: Module unit length 2 to 2.5 m, width 0.95 m; common room length 2 to 2.5 m, width 0.5 m; egg-laying room length 0.8 to 1.0 m, width 0.45 m; bathing room length 1.2 to 1.5 m, width 0.45 m. In other words, the area ratio egg-laying room/common room is approximately 2:3.

With particular reference to Fig. 2, the egg-laying room 1 comprises a gate 4 which is a plate equipped at its lower part with bristles 5, arranged to rotate around a horizontal driving shaft 6 in the upper part of the egg-laying room 1 between the open position of the egg-laying room (shown in Fig. 2), in which the bristles are placed at the outer edge of the egg-laying room, and the closed position of the egg-laying room, wherein the gate 4 rotates as shown by arrow 7 counter-clockwise in Fig. 2. In the closed position, the lower edge of the gate 4 is placed on the boundary line 8 between the egg-laying room and the common room parallel to the longitudinal direction of the poultry farming unit, this boundary line 8 being composed by the lower edge of the passage opening 9 between the egg-laying room 1 and the common room 2. An egg-laying room having this kind of a structure and operation has been presented in the patent application FI-961296 by the same applicant; consequently, its structure and operation will not be discussed in more detail in this context. The common room 2 comprises a bottom 10 with a wire mesh structure, and a conveyor belt 11 for impurities underneath the same. Further, the common room comprises perch structures 12 placed in the longitudinal direction of the common room, above the wire mesh bottom 10, a feeder 13 and a drinking arrangement 14. At the inner edge of the common room 2, an opening is arranged in its longitudinal direction, through which the chickens can move from the common room to the bathing room 3, whose bottom part is equipped with a 5 to 10 cm thick layer of padding sawdust PK. Between the egg-laying room 1 and the bathing room 3 there is a partition wall VS (Fig. 1).

As illustrated particularly in Fig. 2, the bottoms of the egg-laying room 1 and the common room 2 of the poultry farming unit are arranged as sloped surfaces in a cross-sectional view perpendicular to the longitu- dinal direction of the poultry farming unit. These sloped bottoms 10, 16 decline towards the side walls of the poultry farming unit. Outside the side walls of the poultry farming unit, the bottom parts 10, 16 are provided with egg collecting and conveyor units 17a and 17b connected with the outer edges of the bottom parts. Thus, eggs laid in the egg- laying room are transferred through the bristles 5 or via the space underneath them to the egg collection and conveyor unit 17b. In a corresponding way, the eggs laid in the common room 2 roll on the longitudinal side of the common room 2 of the poultry farming unit to the egg collection and conveyor unit 17a outside the same. It should also be noted that when the lower edge of the gate 4 is moved to the boundary line 8, the impurities moved by the bristles 5 or the like from the bottom 16 of the egg-laying room 1 are moved through the wire mesh level 10 of the common room 2 to an impurity conveyor unit 11.

With particular reference to Fig. 3, it is advantageous to place several module units M according to the invention one after the other so that the shorter sides LS of the module unit face each other, thus making a henhouse unit consisting, for example, of about 25 poultry farming units. In a henhouse unit of this kind it is possible to apply advanta- geously the structure of Fig. 3, wherein all module units M are equipped in the longitudinal direction of the henhouse unit with a joint conveyor 18, whose width corresponds to the width of the bathing compartment s. The conveyor 18 runs underneath the bottom 16 of the egg-laying unit 1 which is placed at such a height level that also the padding sawdust layer PK of about 5 to 10 cm thickness on top of the conveyor 18 can go underneath (interspace 19) the egg-laying room 1 on the same line with each bathing compartment 3 in the longitudinal di- rection of the henhouse unit. At the end of the henhouse unit, there is placed a padding sawdust storage unit 20, whose open bottom part 21 is in connection with the conveyor 18, preferably on top of the same. In connection with the storage unit 20, advantageously on the end wall 22 of the first poultry farming unit, there are means 23 for adjusting the thickness of the padding sawdust layer. The means for adjusting the layer thickness can preferably be a plate or the like moving in the vertical direction and having the width of the conveyor 18, wherein the vertical placement of the lower edge 24 of said plate is used to adjust the thickness K of the layer of the padding sawdust to be transferred from the storage unit 20 to the conveyor 18 and further to the poultry farming unit. The conveyor 18 has the length of the whole henhouse unit, wherein the padding sawdust is forwarded in the longitudinal direction of the henhouse unit on the conveyor 18 and it can be removed from the end opposite to the storage unit of the henhouse unit.

With reference to Figs. 2 and 3, the bathing compartment 3 is equipped with a gate 25 corresponding to the gate of the egg-laying room 1 and keeping the bathing room 3 open during the time of egg laying and removing the chickens from the bathing room for night time, wherein it is naturally preferable to replace the padding sawdust at certain intervals, when required, by moving the layer of padding sawdust on the conveyor 18 towards the padding sawdust removal end. Between the upper surface of the padding sawdust and the boundary line 8, a chute 26 or the like having the length of the bathing compartment 3 is placed for lifting the impurities and possible eggs accumulated on the top surface of the bathing compartment 3 at the end of the movement closing the opening 15 of the gate 25 on top of the wire mesh bottom 10, from which the impurities are transferred through the bottom 10 to the conveyor belt 11 and the eggs roll along the bottom 10 to the egg collecting and conveyor unit 17a. The gates 4 and 24 can have a joint driving shaft 6 or they can also be driven separately.

Claims

Claims:

1. Poultry farming unit comprising

- an egg-laying room (1) to be opened for the time of egg laying and to be kept closed with a gate (4) at other times, and

a common room (2) in communication with the egg-laying room (1), equipped with means (11 to 14) for providing for the well-being of the poultry,

characterized in that

- the poultry farming unit includes a bathing room (3) being in communication with the other compartments of the poultry farming unit and equipped with padding sawdust on its bottom.

2. Poultry farming unit as set forth in claim 1 , characterized in that the poultry farming unit is arranged as a module unit (M) comprising a combination of an egg-laying room (1), a common room (2) and a bathing room (3), limited by outer walls.

3. Poultry farming unit as set forth in claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the module unit, seen from above, has a rectangular form, whereby the common room (2) has the length of the longer side (PS) of the rectangular form and the width of about a half of the shorter side (LS) of the rectangular form, and the egg-laying compartment (1) and the bathing compartment (3) are placed one after the other on the side of the common compartment (2), having a substantially equal square area.

4. Poultry farming unit as set forth in claim 3, characterized in that the area ratio between the egg-laying compartment (1) and the bathing compartment (3) is approximately 2:3 (area of the egg-laying compartment / area of the bathing compartment).

5. Poultry farming unit as set forth in any of the claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the bottoms (16, 10) of the egg-laying compartment (1) and the common compartment (2) of the poultry farming unit are formed as sloped surfaces declining towards the side walls of the poultry farm- ing unit, and that outside the side walls of the poultry farming unit, egg collection and conveyor units (17a, 17b) are placed in the longitudinal direction of the poultry farming unit, in connection with the bottoms (16, 10).

6. Poultry farming unit as set forth in any of the claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the gates (4, 25) in connection with the egg-laying compartment (1) and the bathing compartment (3) are arranged to be placed in the closed position on the boundary line (8) between the egg- laying room (1) and the common room (2) of the poultry farming unit, wherein the impurities to be removed with the lower edge of the gate (4) from the egg-laying room (1) and the bathing compartment (3) are arranged to be transferred through the wire mesh bottom (10) of the common room (2) to an impurity conveyor unit (11) placed underneath the wire mesh bottom (10) and eggs along the bottom (10) to the egg collection and conveyor unit (17a).

7. Poultry farming unit as set forth in any of the claims 1 to 3, characterized in that several module units (M) are placed one after the other to constitute a henhouse unit.

8. Poultry farming unit as set forth in claim 7, characterized in that underneath the henhouse unit, a conveyor (18) connecting all the module units (M) is arranged in the longitudinal direction of the henhouse, placed under the bathing compartment, and has a width corre- sponding substantially to the width of the bathing compartment (3).

9. Poultry farming unit as set forth in claim 7 or 8, characterized in that, a storage unit (20) for padding sawdust (PK) is arranged at the end of the henhouse unit for feeding of padding sawdust (PK) in a smooth layer onto the conveyor (18) and transferring it with the conveyor into each bathing compartment (2) of the henhouse unit.

10. Poultry farming unit as set forth in claim 9, characterized in that the storage unit (20) is equipped with means (23) for adjusting the thickness of the layer of padding sawdust.