2120 final report.pdf - Agra CEAS Consulting

THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE VARIOUS SYSTEMS TO KEEP LAYING HENS2.3.3. Weighted average EU dataThis Section weights the technical factors for each production system in each Member Statepresented in Section 2.3.2 by the size of the egg sector in each Member State measured by theproportion of laying hens. The semi-intensive system 12 has been excluded because it is not a widelyused system and data are only available from Italy. There is no data on enriched cages because this isdrawn from very few examples and is not considered truly representative at the EU-15 level. Thisexercise results in the technical data contained in Table 2.7.Feed requirement per bird per day increases as the bird has more freedom to move and hence hashigher energy requirements. Feed per kg eggs follows the same pattern. Eggs collected annually(after mortality) show the opposite trend with higher collections in the caged systems and lowerwhere the birds are less controlled. Mortality also increases as the degree of control is reduced.Pullet costs do increase in the alternative systems and are expected to become even higher in theorganic system when the new organic regulations are introduced stipulating that pullets for theorganic system must be reared organically.Given the relative proportions of the systems used in the EU, and the weights of the egg sector inthe various Member States, the weighted average for all systems is heavily influenced by thetraditional cage data and the largest egg producing Member States.12 This system is as free range, but allows for a higher outdoor stocking density. Under the marketing regulations such eggs are classified asfree range.28