By Mel Luymes
When Walter and Gabriele Haas toured the farm property near Wallace with his real estate agent in 2003, he knew it was the one. Halfway between Listowel and Moorefield, it had three pullet barns on the property and an old red-brick farmhouse.
At 53 years old, it was a big move and a big investment for the Haas family. He brought his wife, Gabriele, and his children, Roland (then 22) and Gudrun (then 19), to Canada. Jürgen, Roland’s twin brother, stayed in Germany to finish his degree in agriculture, but came over two years later.
Walter and the family had lived and farmed in Oberweier, in the south of Germany between the Rhine and the Black Forest. But they didn’t see a future in farming there and by 1999, Walter knew he had to move in order to keep farming.
We all disinfect our shoes as the family gathers in the farm office. Walter points to a small map of the town they came from. The farm was called Riedmuehle, it was a few hectares where there used to be a water mill, originally owned by the monastery and bought by the Haas family in 1907. It was right on the edge of their town, while the hog barn was a few kilometres away.
The map is carved into tiny parcels of land.
“This one is half an acre,” says Walter. Every time a family needed to transfer land to their children, they would sub-divide it equally, he explains. While northern Germany has much larger land parcels, these small parcels were typical in the South. It made land access quite difficult.
“We had 70 hectares of farmland, made of 70 separate parcels before we moved the Canada,” he says. “Most of the farms in Europe are so small, they are not sustainable.”
Walter, Gabriele and the three children worked hard to make a living from those 70 hectares. They had a finishing hog barn, a vineyard, and grew cash crops. And next to the house, they had converted an old tobacco kiln into a layer barn with 3000 hens, direct marketed eggs at two farmers’ markets a week and through local delivery. When cage restrictions changed 25 years ago, they even invested in a permit for a new layer barn. They also had a slaughterhouse licence, processing over 100 broilers and spent hens a week for local markets.
While they stressed that schoolwork came first, the Haas children worked on the farm alongside their parents. They worked day in and day out, yet still a lot of their annual income came from government subsidies.
Over the years, it got increasingly difficult.
“I don’t want to -- what’s the word -- exaggerate, but we worked 6am to 10pm every day for 25 years,” says Walter, and he didn’t want that life for his children.
“My wife wouldn’t answer the phone when I was spreading manure,” says Walter, because he knew what people would be calling and complaining about.
As well, the regulations had been quickly changing across the European Union, and the Haas family could see it would ony get more difficut. When Walter and Gabriele took a farm tour vacation across North America, their eyes were opened to what farming could be. “When I learned about Canada’s supply managed system, I was totally convinced,” says Walter.
“Germany is at least 20 years ahead of Canada in terms of its regulations,” he says. While a 50 x 50 cm cage could house seven layers here in Canada, the system in Germany would allow only five. And when the family moved to brown eggs, Gabriele explains, the birds were larger and only three would fit in a cage. German consumers would not accept eggs produced in cages, and the country had banned conventional and enriched cages before the year 2000.
Canada made a similar move and the 2017 National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Laying Hens dictate that, by 2036, conventional cages are to be phased out, replaced by enriched cages, aviary cages or cage-free barns.
This move in the industry means more new layer barns are being built and there is larger demand for enriched cages and aviary systems as farmers move towards the new normal. As poultry producers look at the age of their equipment, they will have to make some tough decisions in the upcoming few years as to where to put their investment.
Management is critical in a layer barn. Lighting, feed and water need to be carefully managed to keep hens producing an egg a day (ish) for the year. Enriched cages hold 40 hens depending on the size, and are equipped with perches, scratching pads and nesting areas. Some growers prefer lights in each cage, so they can better manage the birds’ circadian rhythms.
Management can be more difficult in cage-free systems, like aviary or floor-based systems, but the industry is adapting to new requirements. Considering that the industry in Europe has a few decades of cage-free regulations under their belt, it makes sense that the leading equipment is being imported, especially from Italy.
FDI, in Mitchell, however, has been making custom caging and poultry equipment for over 50 years. With a recent turnover in ownership, the company is creating new lines of aviary systems, partnering in local research, sourcing as locally as possible and expanding production of enriched cages. Even before the change to poultry codes were announced, they had made “enrichable” cages and now that farmers will soon be required to have 116.25 square inches per bird, FDI is evolving with the industry.
The issue of enhanced cages is a bit more complex, however. Brian Herman, of Brian’s Poultry Services says that sometimes changes to animal welfare regulations have trade-offs. Brian’s Poultry has been providing labour to the poultry industry since 1978, specializing in turkeys, ducks, pullets, and layer hens.
“Some of the new systems may be nice for the birds , but they can be very tough for the farmer to take care of,” says Brian, “and extremely difficult for the catching crew to remove the spent hens.”
“I think some of these regulations are for the regulators,” Walter shakes his head. It seems the biggest frustrations in the poultry industry come from decisions made by people who don’t spend time in chicken barns.
“Cages are the best,” declares Walter, though Jürgen and Gudrun roll their eyes. But even the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association admits the issue is more nuanced in their public position on the NFACC Code. While cage-free birds may get more exercise and increase their bone density, it increases their risk of being pecked and smothered and has increased dust and ammonia levels in the barn, which will impact the farmer’s health. It increases the cost of production as well.
There are trade-offs with all types of systems. Currently, farmers and consumers have the choice of what type of system and value-chain to be a part of. Whether a floor-based, aviary or enriched cage system. There is space for all of them on the grocery store shelves.
“Mostly, our regulations are common sense,” Gudrun says. The next regulations coming look like they will be for ammonia levels in the barn. She flips through a series of binders in the office with their Standard Operating Procedures and their reporting requirements.
Jürgen agrees that many of these regulations are necessary. If producers aren’t following best practices voluntarily, that’s when they get made into mandatory standards. And those standards protect the integrity of the entire industry.
When the Haas family came to Canada, they knew they wanted to get into poultry production, particularly breeders and pullets. And while the opportunity near Listowel meant a transition away from table eggs, they did end up with cage-free chickens after all.
Gudrun now operates four pullet barns with her father on the original property they bought in 2003, producing for eight broiler breeders. One of the barns burned in 2006 which they replaced the same year, with solar walls; they took down a beef barn that housed pullets and replaced it with another barn in 2015, followed by the fourth barn in 2025. Their open house was held back in May; the barn was built by Ernewein, furnished by Glass-Pac, the electrical work done by C. Deen Electric, and fans installed by CountyLine. It was quite a collaboration, with a strong emphasis on automation. The family manages the whole operation with no employees.
Jürgen runs two barns as well, on a second farm they bought in 2008, and in 2017, ownership was transfered from his parents, operating under Black Forest Poultry.
He is producing eggs for Maple Leaf’s broiler hatcheries in New Hamburg and Hanover. He is one of the few chicken farmers that deals with grown roosters, housing one rooster for every 10 hens in a cage-free, floor-based production system. Every day he is collecting eggs, and the hatchery truck picks up two times a week.
Broiler and layer barns depend on breeder and pullet barns to supply them with healthy birds at just the right time. Because each pullet barn can produce enough hens and cockerels for two breeder barns a year, there are half as many pullet barns.
In turn, chicks for these pullet barns come from Aviagen’s “grandparent” facilities. Aviagen is a global poultry genetics company, which developed the Ross hybrid (using four lines of genetics) that is most used around the world for broiler barns. Chicks used to come on a 20-hour truck ride from Georgia, before they began to be hatched in New York state. Now, a hatchery near Brantford will also be handling Aviagen eggs and cut their commute to about an hour.
Considering the complexity of the poultry supply chain, there is a lot of care taken in the pullet and breeder stages to get the timing just right. They don’t technically have “quota,” but they own “production rights” and make their own contracts with broiler breeder farms and hatcheries. They also have more risks, taking biosecurity very seriously; every barn has its own set of boots and coveralls for everyone.
On the pullet farm, they receive the parent chicks when they are a day old and grow them to two kg in 20 weeks on shavings. (Compare this to a broiler barn where they are grown to the same weight in under eight weeks.) They have a very specific feed ration and only eight hours of light a day, to ensure they don’t grow too quickly or start laying eggs in the barn.
In the newest barn, they installed Roxell pan feeders with a built-in beak file that naturally controls the birds’ beaks, so they don’t have to trim them manually. As well, they are vaccinated nearly every week through their water. But week 11 and 18 requires a large crew from Brian’s Poultry Services come in and hand catch the chickens for needle vaccinations. The crew is efficient, processing a large barn in about eight hours.
After 20 weeks, Brian’s Poultry crew come back again and the pullets are delivered in the morning to one of the eight farms they have made contracts with, one of them being Jürgen ’s. He slowly moves the birds on 16-hour lighting and introduces a new feeding regime. Again, nutrition is important for the quality of the eggs, but the birds will underperform if they get too heavy. The breeder hens and roosters live there until 58 weeks and produce about 145 fertilized eggs in their lifetime.
“It isn’t like table eggs,” explains Gudrun. White Leghorn hens are the standard for white eggs, with the best feed efficiency. They are typically kept in high light regimes and fed different rations than breeder hens.
Both Haas properties use peroxide-treated water for their birds, with the Arbourdale system. It treats the drinking water for her house as well, says Gudrun.
Arbourdale started in water treatment for ponds 10 years ago but soon found applications for their technology in livestock watering systems. The company’s flagship product for the poultry industry is Arbrox-L, Marketing Manager Alex Sim explains. It is a stabilized peroxide-based drinking water treatment system for barns. Peroxide breaks down to a water and an oxygen molecule, so it is certified to be used in organic systems. While farmers have long been using chlorine for treating water, they are learning that cutting costs with chlorine is not only impacting overall bird health but also eroding the barn’s plumbing. Chlorine was causing crystalization in the injector as well, says Walter.
Sim says the farm data they’ve been collecting over the past few years is speaking for itself. Having good water means birds will drink more water. It means reductions to poultry mortality, thus improving both the animals’ welfare and the barn’s productivity.
Gudrun is on the board of the Ontario Broiler Chicken Hatching Egg Producers Association (OBCHEPA), which represents the 78 producers in the province and reports to the Ontario Broiler Hatching Egg & Chick Commission (OBHECC) and, in turn, to the national organization.
As we talk back to the house, Walter points to the spot where he stood with the real estate agent, working out the details back in 2003. Over two decades later, he is happy they made the leap to Canada. Both Jürgen and Gudrun are set up to continue farming, while Roland became quite successful down another path. After finishing a PhD in Astrophysics at Guelph, he went on to complete post doctoral fellowships across the U.S. and is now a scientific software developer at UBC for Canada’s largest radio telescope, detecting radio waves from space. Suffice it to say, it was an excellent move for the Haas family.
As you read this, Walter and Gabriele are likely back in Germany for a few weeks with Gudrun and Jürgen holding down the fort. They still get back to their hometown one or two times a year to see friends and family, just not all at once. ◊