When we design a breeder house, it’s important that the equipment meets the demands of the birds. That means that we need a certain amount of feeding lines, nipples and laying nests to supply enough space for the birds to fulfill their needs.
Nowadays there are a lot of automatic (mechanical) community laying nests available. Not all nests are identical or perform equally, but in general it is accepted that we should not exceed a density of 50 females per meter of nest opening, or 100 females per meter of nest (as a nest can be accessed from both sides). If we consider the length of the house to be equal to the total length of the nest, it means that per meter of house we can put 100 females. The width of the house will then determine the density per square meter, but the maximum will be determined by the number of females that have access to that one meter of nest space.
In front of the nests we usually have slats and on the slats we have the drinking system, usually a nipple system with nipples 20 cm apart, or 5 nipples per meter drinking line. As we have a drinking line on both sides of the nest we have 10 nipples per meter of nest. As we have a maximum of 100 birds per meter of nest, we will not exceed 10 birds per nipple, as the 100 birds have 10 nipples available.
When we use a chain feeder, it is commonly accepted that a full grown breeder female needs about 15 cm of feeder space. As we have 100 birds per meter of nest and meter of house, it means that per meter of house we need to supply 100 x 0.15 m is 15 meter of feeder space. A chain feeder can be used on both sides, so we need 7.5 meter of chain per meter of house. As a chain is a circuit, we have to choose between 2, 3 or 4 loops (circuits). Each loop will have an incoming and a returning trough, so each loop provides 2 meter of chain per meter of house. As we need 15 meter of feeder space, it is clear that we need to place 4 loops. When we use 2 loops, the total length of feed chain per meter of house will be 4 meter or 8 meter of feeder space (2 loops of two meter each, used from both sides). 8 meter or 800 cm of feeder space for 100 females is 8 cm of feeder space, which is by far not enough.
When we add one line extra, we have 3 loops, 6 meter of chain per meter of house and 12 meter of feeder space for 100 females. This is 12 cm of feeder space, which is still not enough. So we actually need 4 loops, 8 meter of feed chain or 16 meter of feeder space, which gives 16 cm of feeder space per female.
This means that if we only use 2 or 3 loops, as often seen in the field, we either are underusing our laying nests, or we are not providing enough feeder space. When we only use 80 females per meter of nest and therefore 80 females per meter of house, we can use 3 feed chains as we have than 12 meter of feeder space (3 loops of 2 times 1 meter, used at both sides). With 80 females per meter of house and nest we have 1200 / 80 = 15 cm feeder space per female and 80 / 10 = 8 females per drinking nipple. If our houses are 15 meter wide each meter of house provides 15 m2, so the density will be 5.3 females per m2. These are numbers that we can work with, but we have to realize that when we use less than 4 feeder lines, we are not utilizing the nests fully, and when we have a normal sized house (14 or 15 meter wide) our density is also lower than what it could be. This means that adding an extra feeder line will allow us to use more birds per house and per m2, because the limits of the nests has not been reached with 3 feeder lines.