El Galliner de la Torrassa: more than a decade with Vencomatic Nest

In Martorell, near Barcelona, we find El Galliner de la Torrassa, a member of the cooperative La Dotzena. This farm currently has 7 sheds and between 2,300 and 2,500 organic hens.

From a project for self-consumption to a reference model.

It all started as a domestic project. When Dolors Coral realised after a conversation with friends that she had been buying eggs from caged hens all her life (code 3). In that moment she decided that she did not want to be an accomplice in this type of practice and decided to have her own hens for self-consumption.

But soon the demand from her family, friends and neighbours due to the quality of the eggs meant that she had to increase the number of hens to the point that she had to formalise her small poultry farm of organic hens, which was no longer only for her own consumption.

As the project grew, Dolors had to try different solutions for housing and nesting systems, although none seemed to be the ideal solution, as the nesting systems brands didn't seem to offer optimal conditions for hygiene, comfort and durability.

Until 2012 when she visited Vencomatic Ibérica at the Zaragoza Tradeshow (FIGAN) and was able to see how the Vencomatic Nest worked in person:

"It was the system that I liked the most, I found it cleaner, the house is big, and so on. For me, it's perfect."

The first houses they installed with Vencomatic had to be done with manual crank collection because they didn't have electricity in order to automate the process.

When they started the last house, they already had enough electrical power to automate the last installation, making the daily tasks much easier. The nest boxes close automatically to prevent the hens from staying in them overnight, and the egg belt collection is activated by just a touch of a button.

The impact of this decision is noticeable not only in the daily management, but also in the productive result: achieving laying rates of 95% and the high welfare of the hens, as reflected in their good health.

La Dotzena Cooperative

After Covid, organic egg production also started to become more common among large producers, which put the survival of this small local farm at risk.

But they were not the only ones, other organic farms were in a similar situation, so they held several meetings with the proposal to create a cooperative.

After numerous meetings, in June 2024, the most like-minded and who saw it more clearly were officially grouped behind the new cooperative entity La Dotzena, allowing them to reduce costs and join forces.

Today they have a total of 17,000 organic hens among the 7 members, and have managed to stabilise their costs without raising prices despite the recent inflationary trend in the sector.

Their advice for other farms

After testing different brands of nesting systems, their conclusion is clear: "cheap things end up being expensive", and despite the fact that there are cheaper options on the market, the quality of the product is important, both for daily management, for the welfare of the birds and also because it guarantees its durability.

After using the Vencomatic Nest for more than a decade, he tells us that it continues to work perfectly and that the quality of the finishes is noticeable:

We've been using it since 2012 so that means we've been using it for... well 13 years, 14 years. So for me, it's perfect. And the nests close really well. I would repeat again with Vencomatic.

And if I consider expanding, I'm sure that, even if it's a little more expensive, the price-performance ratio is unmatched.