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Farming '90, 1990-03-21, Page 3FARMING ‘90, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21, 1990. A3. Today’s farm is a far cry from the farm fondly remembered from grandfather'stime... the kind of farm still depicted in children’s story booksand in bad movies. Theday of afarm with a few chickens pecking in the yard, a few milk cows, some pigs wallowing in the mud and a couple of horses in the pasture lives only in a few hobby-farm situations. the farm...Today’s farm is so specialized that even a hog farmer may not know what his dairy-farmer neighbour does in his day-to-day work and neither would know what life is like in the almost factory-like atmosphere of a large laying hen operation. To explore the modern world of farming our photographers visited a number of farming operations throughout the area recently and brought back a picture story of a day on the farm.---------------------------------------------------------- Hi chick! 'Egg-stra' easy Eggsaregathered twiceadayat Johnstons, at nine in the morning and about 3:30 in the afternoon. Usually, Larry and Helen undertake the task together and can finish the four rows in three hours. Their children, Walter and Grace help out on weekends. Each row takes approximately 25 minutes to gather. During gathering, all the farmer is required to do is stand at the head of the rowsand the eggs are delivered on belts to them. Then, it’s just a matter of depositing the eggs on the trays. Any broken eggs are easily tossed onto the manure mats under the chicken cages. There are six chickens to a cage at Johnstons and each chicken is debeaked before it arrives at the farm. This is done to prevent the chickens from harming eachother. It may also protect the chicken catchers who Larry hires twice a year to take out the old chickens and bring in the new chickens It’sa busy time between departures and arrivals said Larry because the barn is given a total wash. Although special barn cleaners are hired for the job, Larry spendsalotof timecleaning the barn from roof to floor. In modern laying barns, everything is automatic Egg cart Egg-stemely' clean Particularly dirty eggs are set aside during gathering to be washed. Here Larry demonstrates the process which involves filling up thewi re basket with the dirty eggs and depositing the basket into the rotating bucket. The bucket is filled with warm water and electricity powers the rotation. There is usually a bucketful of eggs to clean each day said Larry, who explained that although the company that buys the eggs does clean eggs, their equipment can’t whiten very dirty eggs. Once five trays have been filled while gathering, they are plac­ ed on a cart. Once the cart is filled, it is wheeled into a cool storagearea. Each tray holds30 eggs and Larry said the chick­ ens are laying about 7,000 eggs a day. However, the chickens are nearing the end of their laying cycle and are only producing about 72 per cent. In a laying operation, the hens are only kept for one year during which time they will be produc­ ing from 25 per cent to almost 100 per cent of their potential. The new batch of chickens come in at the age of 20 weeks old and are laying at about 25 per cent. They.start laying at full capacity when they are at 25 to 28 weeks old and can reach a peak of 96 per cent said Larry. Gone are the days when the chicken farmer would gently lift up clucking hens to collect eggs for a living. In today’s laying bams, everything from manure handling to egg gathering is so technologically advanced, little manual labour is required from the farmer operating a laying operation. Such is the case for Larry and Helen Johnston of RR 1, Auburn who became egg producers six years ago after many successful years as milk producers. The pair decided to switch from cows to chickens mainly because of the decreased work load laying operation would grant them in comparison to the strenuous labour required to maintain a dairy operation. Extensive renovations transformed the couple’s one-level dairy barn into a laying bam with four double rows of cages. The rows are wider than the two long rows usually seen in laying barns simply because the dimensions of their former dairy bam demanded the alteration of cage length. Each row begins with a gathering station and ends above a stable cleaner where the mechanized mats under the cages that collect manure dump their cargo. The specialized equipment, reconstruction of their bam and the purchase of egg quota was financially feasible for the Johnston’s from the sale of their Holstein cattle and milk quota. Their transformed farm has been a learning experience for the pair as they continually gamer information about chicken farming and adjust to the different lifestyle an egg producing operation offers. Altogether, a day’s chores at Johnston’s laying barn takes about seven and a half hours with one person. However, there is no heavy labour and the financial returns are profitable. “It’s semi-retirement compared to cows,’’ said Larry, although he admits he wouldn’t have liked to farm chickens his whole life because “there is much more to cows than to chickens.” This is what the camera recorded of what a typical day at Johnstons laying bam entails. Story and Photos By Lisa Boonsfoppel