Hickman’s Egg Ranch’s cage-free push

Hickman’s President Glenn Hickman and his brother, Vice President Billy Hickman, say within four years about 80 percent of the company’s egg production will be cage free. The reasoning is plain: The customer demands the product.

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Hickman’s Egg Ranch is transition to 80 percent cage-free in order to meet demand for the product. | Austin Alonzo
Hickman’s Egg Ranch is transition to 80 percent cage-free in order to meet demand for the product. | Austin Alonzo

Hickman’s Egg Ranch is willing to tear out its new, California Proposition 2-compliant enriched colony hen housing and replace it with cage-free equipment. The egg market’s rapid shift to cage-free production makes it clear to the largest egg farm west of the Rockies that the investment must be made now to assure the future of the company.

Hickman’s President Glenn Hickman and his brother, Vice President Billy Hickman, say within four years about 80 percent of the company’s egg production will be cage free. The reasoning is plain: The customer demands the product.

“I think to a fault, our company has always been willing to mutate and follow the customer. If the customer got big, we had to get big. Now our customer is asking us for cage free, so we’re going to have to do that,” Glenn Hickman, the company’s business leader, said. “I think that we’ve had a willingness always to follow what we felt the market was dictating and not just say, ‘I know better and I am going to produce this product even if I have to sell it at a discount.’”

In February, Egg Industry visited Hickman’s operations in Arizona and sat down with the Hickman family to discuss the 73-year-old family business’ past, present, and future. In total, its flocks in Arizona and Colorado account for 9.1 million birds, ranking it as the 11th largest U.S. egg producer in WATT Global Media’s annual Top Egg Company Survey.

The cage-free origins

Billy Hickman, the company’s operations leader, said Hickman’s cage-free transition began in earnest in 2016, not long after the dual disruptive forces of highly pathogenic avian influenza and McDonald's Corp.’s pledge to serve only cage-free eggs in the U.S. and Canada by 2025 shook the industry. In September 2015, the company announced plans to add new housing for 2 million cage-free hens at its operations in Tonopah and Arlington, Arizona.

“I think consumers, for the most part, are committed to (cage free). I don’t think that’s just words about consumers caring about where their food comes from,” Billy Hickman said. “We see an opportunity, and the reason is there is going to be a lot of producers that don’t embrace the conversion to cage free, or the cage-free market, and we look at that as an opportunity to continue our growth.”

Hickman’s founder Bill Hickman, Glenn and Billy’s father, said the history of the egg industry has shown that companies that don’t grow don’t stay around.

The transition is difficult to embrace – especially for the older generations who have been working with conventional cages for decades, he said, but it’s acceptable because of the unquestionable future demand. Billy Hickman said the company is depending on a young generation of workers who believe in, and are committed to, cage-free hen husbandry.

Glenn and Billy Hickman also said they’ve spoken with, and worked with, animal rights activist groups to determine what the industry’s future will look like. They said the groups are driving the changes, so it makes sense to embrace the groups or at least keep a good line of communication with them.

Conversion challenges

Hickman’s first cage-free flocks were challenging because the hens were not reared in cage-free pullet housing. Those hens stay on the floor and the lower tier of the three-tier aviary system used in the Arizona houses, rather than climbing up into the system’s top two tiers. This created numerous management problems.

Newer flocks are reared in cage-free housing, and the properly trained birds stay higher in the system, resulting in a cleaner house and few mislaid eggs. Billy Hickman said properly raised pullets make an easier transition to the laying house from the pullet house.

Additionally, the cage-free transition means California-compliant hen housing is now in the rearview mirror. While the state law mandating larger housing for caged hens went into effect in January 2015 and the enriched colony housing is still new, Billy Hickman said it is likely once the flock housed in the system turns over, colonies will be replaced with aviaries.

 A cage-free growth strategy

All future housing construction on Hickman’s facilities will be cage free and the company will remodel, depending on the equipment modifications, through each group exchange. Hickman’s growth goal, Glenn Hickman said, is to double in size. That plan is already in place.

Hickman’s, in partnership with Goshen, California, feed company Western Milling Co. and Neosho, Missouri, egg company Opal Foods, is building four farms in California’s Central Valley that will house up to 10 million cage-free birds.

Two farms will be built, Billy Hickman said, with the last two waiting on the right market conditions and acceptance before moving forward. The farms will supply California’s cage-free egg market and effectively double the size of the company.

The first farm in Kern County, California, is under construction and slated to include three pullet houses and seven layer houses, along with accompanying mechanical support systems. Egg production is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2018.

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