“Our farm has been on this location in Germany for 1000 years now. It is a perfect spot, on a hill next to the river Ems. I just built a new laying hen house, next to my parents’ house. I built it with the ECO Zero heat exchanger of Vencomatic Group, because I want full control of the temperature.”
Laurenz Pott is a farmer in Lingen, he owns two laying hen houses around the town. He switched the focus from beef cattle to chickens after he took over in 2013: “I wanted to give my cattle a good life on straw instead of concrete floors, but then the air pollution would be too high according to the government. So I switched to laying hens, I built a free range 37.860 layer house at 10 kms from my house, also equipped with the Bolegg Terrace. The new house I built here in 2020 holds 14.840 organic laying hens. And Vencomatic Group helped me design it.” 
What do you like about chicken farming?
“I like developing ideas and new experiences, chickens were new for our farm and this way I could learn new knowledge and get to know other people. Originally I wanted to become a financial controller, but after working side by side with my father on the farm for six years I decided that I did not want to shut it down.”
“I saw a lot of potential in chicken farming, but I also changed in these years. I never liked sitting on a tractor or other things, so agriculture was not an option for me.”
Why did you buy the ECO Zero heat exchanger from the Vencomatic Group?
“I am always looking for something new and better than average, in my conversations with the Sales Manager of Vencomatic Group he explained the ECO Zero system to me. It guarantees -in summer and winter- a constant temperature inside the house, controlled by the heat exchangers. There was no other system that controlled the air and temperature. So no cold winters and no hot summers anymore, the environment where the birds are in inside the house is always optimal.”
“I had an offer for a poultry house from one of your competitors for the first layer house, but I wanted a second offer to compare. The people of Vencomatic Group gave me a better feeling, but the products are also better: more steel. I also had to buy an air cleaner and Vencomatic Group could sell me one. I bought it out of trust, the people of Vencomatic Group always helped us with problems. I trust the company, and in this way also their heat exchanger.”
What is your experience with the ECO Zero of the Vencomatic Group?
“My experiences with the ECO Zero are very good. The climate is constant, which is good for the birds. I am expecting that the birds deliver 15 eggs more per bird, on top of the laying calendar the chicken supplier handed out. The mortality is also much lower than usual: around 0.8% now, with the age of 45 weeks. In my other free range house, I am not used to these low numbers.”
“In the winter the heat exchanger worked perfectly: with -18 degrees outside, the inside temperature was around 20 degrees. The ECO Zero system did the job well, snow also did not give problems. Recently we decided, together with the egg handler, that we will keep the birds up to 95 weeks of age, because they perform so well.”
“The air is dry, which is an improvement compared to the humidity that was a problem in the past. The hens also eat 4-5 grams feed less. It also has disadvantages however, chicken legs can become too dry but you can help this by adding linseed to the feed. It is just a matter of finding solutions, I always prefer dry air above humidity. So the Vencomatic Group solution has my preference.”
