With 2,3 Mio square meters and 32 Mio inhabitants, Algeria is one of the biggest layer market in Africa together with Nigeria and South Africa.



The participants of this year Lohmann School in Algiers

24 Mio layers are produced every year in Algeria with an unknown number of chicks smuggled additionally into the country over the Moroccan boarder. The supply of layer and broiler chicks used to be the responsibility of the 3 government farms Oravio, Oravie and Orac, named after their location in the East, the West and the center of the country. Nowadays, about 50 % of the market is in private hands with 15 layer parentstock operations mainly in the Northern, fertile and relatively cooler part of the country.

About 80 % of the farmers are producing their own feed due to the high costs and insecure quality of the fabricated feed. A production peak over 93 % is common as well as 12 –16 weeks of production over 90 %.

Algeria is a market for XLarge brown eggs produced nowadays mainly in cages. The traditional houses with only natural ventilation and manual feeding systems are more and more replaced by modern, environmental controlled houses. Main problem is the high density of poultry production in the North with a lack of biosecurity on the farms, therefore Gumboro, IB and ND challenges are very common.

A trial with LOHMANN BROWN in the 90’s showed that the egg producers are looking for a much bigger egg size than the LB. Luckily the genetic department had purchased a line with very big egg size from a university in Germany and after a couple of years was able to offer a new breed named LOHMANN TRADITION Tradition specially for these kind of markets. With the XL eggs, very calm behavior and good plumage until the end of production which is a very good selling point for the life stock market, this hen seemed to be the ideal line for Africa so the first LOHMANN TRADITION flock was supplied to Oravio in 2003. It became a success story and nowadays 43 % of the egg producers in Algeria are using this breed produced by 6 hatcheries, 5 private and one government farm. Apart from the egg size the Algerian producers are also appreciating the good laying performance of the bird and the excellent shell quality until end of production.

To support the egg producers and breeder customers LOHMANN TIERZUCHT is organizing annual seminars in Algeria as well as biannual francophone Loh­mann Schools in either France or French speaking countries, apart from regular technical visits to the farms. This year the Algerian seminar took place in Algiers at the Hilton Hotel with 39 participants and the LOHMANN TIERZUCHT representative Dr. Salim Benkelil has done an excellent job organizing this fruitful event. Guest speakers from LOHMANN France Joël Audefrey and Julien Flori from Bio-Chêne Vert impressed the audience with presentations about layer management and vaccination techniques while LTZ sales director Michael Seidel gave an overview of the EW group and the LOHMANN TIERZUCHT company. The meeting was rounded up by a festive lunch.

The next francophone Lohmann School will take place in Nantes in October.

Viola Holik
Area Sales & Service Manager