Hatchery ter Heerdt is the exclusive distributor and franchise hatchery of the LOHMANN layer breed in the Netherlands since the beginning of 2012.


They provide approximately 40 % of the day old chicks and pullets in the Netherlands. In addition, they have customers in Germany and Belgium.

Hatchery ter Heerdt celebrated their 75th anniversary in September 2012. The founder of the company was Mr. Willem ter Heerdt, the grandfather of Chiel and Niek ter Heerdt, two of the current owners. Mr. Symen van de Velde is the third shareholder. Together with Mr. Chiel ter Heerdt, he is responsible for the daily and commercial management for the company which is located in Babberich, a small town in Holland near the German border.


Setter at Hatchery ter Heerdt

In the early sixties, the father of Mr. Chiel ter Heerdt and his brother chose to specialize in layer breeding. Hatchery ter Heerdt now has a team of experts to supply the customers a complete package with all the know-how which the modern poultry farmer needs. Besides, they also developed an online webbased programme where the pullet customers can, with the aid of personalized usernames and passwords, check on the weekly updated information of the flocks in rearing. This is a very innovative method and provides an actual, fully transparent insight view to the customers of their pullets in rear at the rearing farms. Hatchery ter Heerdt works with 75 contracted pullet growers.

In the summer of 2012, Hatchery ter Heerdt opened a brand new hatchery. The new turn-key hatchery, equipped with technology from the Dutch-based incubator supplier HatchTech, has an initial annual production capacity of 9.2 million layers, although the current building, cooling, heating, and ventilation equipment was actually designed for a future production of 15 million layers in total.

Overview of HatchTech hatcher cabinet at Hatchery ter Heerdt

The automation in the new hatchery is supplied by Prinzen Machines and Viscon, both from the Netherlands. Besides this, Hatchery ter Heerdt is custom hatching at a hatchery in Southern Netherlands. Both hatcheries are equipped with Novatech Infrared beak treatment and vaccination machines.

Together with his team, the Hatchery and Technical Director, Mr. Niek ter Heerdt, worked on the plans for the new hatchery facility for almost three years. The hatchery has been in operation for six months now and from the beginning onwards, the results have been very satisfying. They are very pleased with the hatchability rate and the quality of the day-old chicks which boasts a very low mortality rate in the first week. They see a huge improvement compared with other breeds in former time, also in the other custom hatchery. This has to do with the unique laminar airflow system in the setters and hatchers which assures an ideal environmental condition in which every embryo in the incubator is kept at the optimal temperature for outstanding development. Another unique feature in the hatchery is the HatchTech CyClean. With the CyClean which is located in each hatcher, 95 % of the fluff which usually leaves the hatcher can be captured in the machine. This results in a much cleaner exhaust air, significantly reducing the chances of cross-contamination in and around the hatchery.

Pieter-Jan Luykx