Organic poultry farming

Summary

The development in organic livestock production can be attributed to an increased consumer inter-est in organic products while, at the same time, farmers are interested in converting to organic pro-duction methods – often stimulated by governmental support or subsidies. It is important that the organic production systems can fulfil the expectations of each of these stakeholders if the organic livestock production is to increase further. This is in particular important if the organic poultry pro-duction should move from the present niche-production to a real player in the food marked, like in the case of beef and milk.
It can be argued that the limited organic poultry production is related to the fact that it is far more difficult for the farmers to change the existing production systems for poultry compared to produc-tion systems for cattle and other ruminants in a way that gives a harmonious balance between the different aims of organic farming. In the existing systems for layers with flock sizes of 3,000 hens and where the hens have access to an outdoor area, the egg production and the feed conversion can be close to production results in conventional production. However, often a considerable mortality can be seen in organic egg production in part due to cannibalism and often also very high nutrient loads are observed in parts of the outdoor area. These conditions are important drawbacks in exist-ing systems.
In order to improve the situation there is a need to look at the genotype of hens, to consider new management procedures, and – not at least – to consider new systems where the poultry to a higher degree are integrated in the land use. Promising results with integration of chickens, ducks and geese into an orchard production is found. Also preliminary results of housing systems for small flocks of layers are presented.