The clucking of chickens can be heard in every village. In South Moravian Pouzdřany, however, the sound comes from an unusual environment. The hen resides in a huge enclosure dominated by three maringotka-like houses. Despite the size of the chicken pen, the coop sits in those three green houses. When they have cleared all the grass around them, the breeders move them a little further. They have mobile chicken coops.
That unusual picture can be seen just a short distance from the recently reconstructed headquarters of the Kolby winery. It was recently bought by the J&T company of financier Patrik Tkáč and proceeded with extensive renovation. The company also owns a plot of land just a few hundred meters away, and instead of leaving it empty, it has placed the three mentioned chicken coops here. Winemaker Vlastimil Nešetril takes care of both.
Although the mobile chicken coop is a simple feature and at first glance it is quite close to a maringotka, it is a relatively sophisticated matter. The chicken coop is autonomous, with photovoltaics on the roof. The computer controls the ventilation, heat or cooling, monitors the water and feed levels in the tanks and warns of unusual situations. The hens then go to lay eggs on a special belt, which the operator turns on after laying, and the eggs go straight out of the hen house and into the sorting room. There they are checked, packed and headed to the store.
“You can hook the chicken coop to the tractor and drag it to where you need it. The chickens will eat the grass in about two weeks, but at the same time they will also fertilize the soil, so it will grow again.” Nešetril describes. They have been producing eggs here, in the so-called Pouzdranská Steppe, for more than a year. There are up to two and a half thousand hens in one chicken coop, Kolby has 7,400 of them in total.
There are up to two and a half thousand hens in one chicken coop
According to Nešetril, there is probably no more ecological form of raising chickens on a large scale today. Although they did not solve the fundamental question of the world, whether the egg or the hen came first, they made it clear that the hen has a greater value than what cage farms attribute to it.
Eggs look like that too. Kolby currently produces those labeled 1. This means that they are eggs from free-range hens. Only eggs marked zero are better. They are from organic breeding. And that’s exactly what Kolby is aiming for.
“It’s not easy to go organic. So you can’t produce just one thing, but everything. And since Kolby has vineyards that have switched to organic production since January, the eggs will also be organic,” explains the head winemaker.
But it will take two years before the eggs get a zero mark. Breeders will have to prove, for example, that the grass the chickens eat has not been fertilized for two years. And even though this is how the chicken run has been working since its inception, the transition period must still be maintained. This is also why, according to Neštěril, there is such a hunger for organic products in retail chains. Few people are able to follow the rules.
Kolby has three chicken coops
The production cost of one egg is between three and a half and four crowns at Kolba. In chains, such eggs usually end up at eight to nine kroner, while the margin for breeders is roughly one kroner. According to Nešetril, it is not cheap, but hens in organic farming have more demanding dietary requirements.
“However, due to the increase in the price of inputs, the price of conventional eggs has also increased, so the price has become closer. If cage farming is banned, the transition won’t be as difficult for customers,” says the director of the local winery.
Kolby obviously values his hens. He has them in the vineyard for thirteen months, when their productivity is highest. Even then, he doesn’t want to leave them to their fate. Kolby sells the hen, but he tries to see to whom. They mostly go to small farms, to people from nearby villages. In the backyard, the chicken can live peacefully for another three years. She only lays one egg every two days. “Over time, we would like to create a group of subscribers. Since we already take such care of the chicks, we want them to continue to be well.” says Neštiril.
When the hens eat grass, just move the coop
Production is now around two million eggs per year. About half go to classic supermarkets. Customers can also find them, for example, in the Rohlík and Košík online stores or in Kaufland or Globus. They are sold here under the brand name Vejce Zlouky. It is also heading to Bidfood, which is a gastro distributor.
The distribution is twofold. One is from Pouzdřany in South Moravia, from where the eggs are transported to Brno and the South Moravian region. The second leg is located in Zbraslav, it is the company ARC Integrity, which cooperates with J&T. Restaurants, hotels and bakeries in Prague, where the interest in eggs is greater, will be contracted from there. Kolby also plans to have one store at the winery itself.
It seems that chickens and grapes belong together. “Chickens are the best fertilizer in the world, they have a lot of nitrogen and minerals, they just have to sit and ferment for a while. The consumption of manure on the vineyards in Kolby is about 300 tons per year, the hens produce about 250. This is how we solved the manure for the winery,” depicts Neštiril. Kolby thus managed to introduce a new term into the farming dictionary – vineyards.
