Organic feed mill for poultry feed

Perfect results in both quality & productivity with feed that can be modified à la carte

Meet Christophe Vauthier, manager of the EARL de la Basse Cour.  Christophe is recognized in the region since 2006 for organic farming. He also appears in the book Le Goût à l'état brut: Mes artisans, leurs produits, mes recettes by Philippe Mille thanks to the success of his gallinaceous on the tables of Domaine Les Crayères.

Christophe and Virginie, his wife, manage a farm with 60 Ha of cereals, a breeding farm with layers and another with chickens, guinea fowl and capons, turkey and chicken. They also sell to communities and specialized stores in the Grand Est Alsace-Lorraine Champagne-Ardenne: we have created a brand for ourselves. We are serious, attentive to the stores and honest with our customers. Today, we have two tours covering 600 km: Alsace/Vosges and Meurthe-et-Moselle/Champagne-Ardenne/Bar-le-Duc. Our driver is in direct contact with customers. He responds to requests and questions. It allows us to retain our customers.

Christophe never ceases to be proactive and to invest in projects that are dear to him: Offering high quality and local products, and improving the existing to always be efficient and adapting to local demand.

Christophe has invested in obtaining quality products.

From manual to automated manufacturing

"When we started organic farming in 2006, we bought the feed because we were in integration. We had completely irregular productions with increases and decreases in egg-laying. The hens were being selective with the feed. We even experienced a drop of 100,000 eggs!“

Then we created our own manual dosing feed mill with circuit tipper. "The manual handling required a full-time employee and we were not very accurate in the dosing." Unloading the trucks was tedious and time-consuming.

In 2016, they opted for a SKIOLD feed mill: an MV600 vertical assembly.

Undeniable working comfort

For the past year, Christophe and Virginie have reduced the working hours on the farm: "We unload the trucks in a few minutes. We have better working comfort. The on-farm feed mill operates 30 minutes every other day. It also depends on when I bring in my trucks. With a truck, we will do 3 weeks."

With on-farm feed production, the grain falling time is recalculated at each manufacturing cycle. "It is these details that interest me, to have perfect feed". Thus, from the cereal field to the sale of their production, Christophe and Virginie master everything from A to Z. The production cost of the feed is 50 €/T.

The farmer carried out the wiring of the installation himself and then a check was carried out by SKIOLD technicians. "You still have to be a handyman!"

Perfect results: In quality & productivity

Production is better both in quality and productivity.

"It's been running for one and a half year, and we have noticed a regularity in consumption for the laying hens." In fact, Christophe customizes the batch ration for the poultry by adjusting the feed as close as possible to their needs whether for broiler or laying poultry. The advantage of on-farm feed production is that "the feed can be modified à la carte". This customization has made it possible "to preserve the liver of the laying hens, which remains red and not foamy/fat as usual.

Similarly, "we earned €15,000 over one year for layers. Previously, at 11 and a half months, we had a lot of downgrades. We were barely getting to 12 months. Today, we can do it easily! ». Thus, they get a better quality of shells and utilize the eggs more easily." Today, we have perfect technical results. The veterinarians come once a year for the mandatory control and they tell us that everything is perfect.”

Clean raw materials for perfect feed

In addition, "we clean the grain from all impurities by reducing mycotoxins. It is the mastery of our raw material, which is noble, that gives us very efficient rates." We created a platform and installed our grain cleaner on top, which allows us to clean our seeds without dust generation. As the latest project to date, he wants to improve the cleaning and bagging of his crops.

Technical information

• Crops (70 Ha) 6 THU
• 15,600 broilers and 2,500,000 eggs/year
• Slaughterhouse, cutting plant and feed mill
• Vertical assembly feed mill: Vertical mixer, 600 litre grain hopper, Disc Mill, weighing frame controlled by a SKIOLD Fabristar S.
• Depreciation over 7 years

Installation carried out by the breeder himself, Christophe Vauthier.

Do you want to produce your own feed too? Contact us at SKIOLD, and we will help you achieve the goals you have for feed production!

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