Robert Nijkamp: “The Windstreek house”

During the three-day congress at the VIV-Europe 2022, aviNews International had the great opportunity to interview different poultry experts with experience in diverse fields or areas in the industry. This note introduces you to the interview with Robert Nijkamp, a Netherlands broiler grower.  The interviews were developed by Ad Bal, the editor of aviNews International, who has more than 20 years of experience as an editor in de poultry sector. Robert has built a particular poultry house called “Windstrake House”, meaning Winds direction house in English. This is a fully natural ventilated house with a lot of daylight, without technical equipment with the purpose to imitate what happens in nature. The most eye-catching aspect of this house is, of course, its shape. Some people even think it’s a soccer stadium. Windstreek refers to the principle of its construction and ventilation system. He explained that the initiative to build this kind of house was a government project with the universities to look for more sustainable houses, especially animal welfare friendly. At that time, they made two or three drawings from totally different systems to help the broiler grow from day-old to full growth at the end of the cycle. Robert said that he was impressed with the windstreek project and decided to start with his farm.

 He permanently collects and connects big data to manage his flock in this unique house as effectively as possible.

Other topics discussed during the interview were:

• Principles of the Windstreek house
• How does this system work?
• Differences in broilers’ performance
• Data collection and analysis

To watch the interview with Robert Nijkamp, check out the video where the above topics and others are discussed in depth. Click here to read the full interview with Robert in our magazine

• aviNews international delivered the latest magazine to most of the assistants. This edition contained technical articles about incubation, pathology, laying hens, equipment, and interviews. To check that edition, you can visit this link.