P. Abrahamsson et R. Tauson, PERFORMANCE AND EGG QUALITY OF LAYING HENS IN AN AVIARY SYSTEM, Journal of applied poultry research, 7(3), 1998, pp. 225-232
Laying hens were kept in an aviary system on a practical scale under S
wedish conditions during five entire production cycles. All hens were
non break-trimmed, since this is prohibited in Sweden. The aviary type
used, Marielund, is a three-tiered aviary with litter. About 4700 hen
s kept in four pens were housed in each batch. Lohmann Selected Leghor
n (LSL) layers were used in all five trials. In addition to LSL, the L
ohmann Brown (LB) was used in Trial 3 and an experimental cross (SLU-1
329) was used in Trial 5. The performance of the hens from 20 until 80
wk (18.6 to 22.5 kg/hen housed), as well as mortality (4.0 to 20.9%),
varied between years. This variation was greater than could be expect
ed in cage systems and was possibly the result of unpredictable cases
of cannibalism, in the medium heavy brown hybrid especially, and/or pa
rasitic disorders like Red mites or coccidiosis. The proportion of mis
placed eggs (flow eggs) seemed to be influenced by rearing, but was al
so observed to vary between different pens within batch. The total ran
ge during the five trials was between 0.7 and 18.4%. The proportion of
dirty eggs was highly dependent on the proportion of misplaced eggs.