Ontario chicken farmers rethink growing cycles

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario chicken farmers will have a chance to produce chicken in a seven-week growing cycle starting next year, while farmers using the 12-week cycle will have to switch to another cycle as that option is being discontinued.

Chicken Farmers of Ontario introduced the seven-week growing cycle after learning through consultations with farmers, processors, hatcheries and other stakeholders “there was an increased demand for a shorter (production) cycle,” says Michael Edmonds, communications and government relations director.

Farmers can start producing for the seven-week cycle starting Feb. 19, 2017, the first quota period of the new year, according to a Chicken Farmers’ June 13 press release. The other cycles are eight, nine or ten weeks.

Edmonds says Chicken Farmers doesn’t know how many farmers will use the seven-week cycle once it’s available.

Farmers make decisions on what growing cycle to use based on several factors, including the size of birds needed by the processor they have a contract with and how they’re going to “optimize their barn,” Edmonds says.

The idea behind giving farmers choices in the cycles is to give them and processors flexibility and “to make sure they’re optimizing the production cycle for both the industry and for their own needs,” he notes.

As for the 12-week cycle that’s being discontinued as of Feb. 19, 2017, Edmonds says less than five per cent of Ontario’s 1,155 commercial chicken farmers currently use that option.

The board is continuing to study how to simplify the system so it may reduce the number of cycles, currently at four, at a later date. BF