"We save at least €3,000 a year on chemicals"

"Actually, I am retired, but I still enjoy coming to the farm every day." are the opening words of Henk Scheper, now ex-owner of poultry farm with 45,000 free-range laying hens in Witteveen. "About four years ago, my son Roel-Jan took over the business, but as long as it remains fun, I am happy to lend a hand. Within our combined business, everyone has their specialism after all, and for me that's the chicken."

Using chemicals is mopping up with the money tap open

Senior's experience still comes in handy for optimisation in poultry. "Good climate, feed and water are essential in our operations. In recent years, we put a lot of effort into the first two aspects, but water testing showed that the germ count of the drinking water was too high. Coupled with disappointing results - too high failure rate and coliform pressure - we saw room for improvement here."

In the past, Drent often turned to chemicals such as acids, water purifier and chlorine to do so. Besides the high price tag of the agents, the Scheper family was also dissatisfied with the effect. "Firstly, you were actually always too late administering it. You don't put it on continuously, so only when there are already problems. Moreover, there was always a wave motion; shortly after deployment, the failure rate did decrease, but after a certain time it returned to the same level. So using chemicals is mopping up with the money tap."

Water now completely clean

On the advice of fellow villager and dairy farmer Jan Geerlig, Henk immersed himself in the Watter system. Here, a disinfectant is produced on site from water and salt and continuously added to the chickens' water. The agent is friendly, the operational costs are zero and above all: it works incredibly well: "After the Watter system was installed, water samples were taken: they were perfectly clean."

However, the poultry farmer is not one to be taken for granted: "Critical as we are, we then had water samples checked ourselves; these too were completely clean. Indeed, representatives of other products sometimes try to prove us wrong, but these samples are always tip-top clean as well. For us, water as a risk is now completely covered."

Like colleague Geerlig, Henk says he is very happy with the purchase of the Watter system: "Don't let anyone tell you that the device is expensive. Of course the purchase costs a sum of money, but in chemicals alone we save €3,000-€4,000 a year. Add to that the dropout rate has dropped and less medication needs to be used and everyone can calculate that the device pays for itself very quickly."