Comparison of productivity and economic benefit of commercial Lohmann Brown Lite layer’s on free-range and conventional cage systems

Abstract

The study was conducted in two different types of natural ventilated housing systems; one featured with conventional laying cages while other had free-range system features. The aim was to analyse productivity and economic benefit or loss of the Lohmann Brown Lite on different housing (Free-range system and Conventional cage system) with an evaluation of production cost. The total of 49 700 point of lay Lohmann Brown Lite layers pullets were placed in four natural ventilation free-range houses each consist of three rows of two tier conventional laying cages. The other 40 000 point of lay Lohmann Brown Lite layers pullets were place in four free-range houses each with placement of 10 000 chickens. The Cobb Douglas production model was used to determine the productivity of two different housing system by factoring the fixed cost and variable cost of the entire production process. The breakeven point tool was used to analyse the point where the total revenue equals the total variable and fixed expenses and the cost volume profit by measuring the profitability of each housing system (Nabil et al. 2014). The results of the study revealed different productivity between conventional cage system (82.94%) and the free-range system (77.46%). These results led to the acceptance of hypothesis 1 that “the production of Lohmann Brown Lite is the same when they are kept on the free-range system or conventional cage system. The capital investment and operation on conventional cage system showed breakeven at 43 months while free-range system showed breakeven at 60 months. The economic benefit analysis shows that the free-range system has cost benefit of R0.29 and conventional cage system has a cost benefit of R0.26. It means for every rand spent, farmer may get R0.29 Rand as profit for free-range system and every rand spent for conventional cage system can get R0.26 Rand. The economic benefit to farmer is greater on free-range system that lead to acceptance of hypothesis 2 that the economic benefit of egg production is greater on the free-range system compared to conventional cage system. Free-range housing system remain the best alternative to replace the conventional cage housing system.