Faced with the inevitability of having to convert 15 to 20-year old high-rise units to more welfare-friendly housing, Jacques Klempf of Dixie Egg Company opted to convert these units at his Humpty Dumpty farm to non-confined systems. The four houses selected for conversion were conventional 600 ft x 50 ft high-rise houses each holding 72,000 hens fitted with four-tier A-frame cages.
Alternatives considered included installing enrichable cages with the option of later converting to an enriched configuration or to opt for a non-confined system. Based on the demand for cage-free and especially organic in the market served by the Dixie, Klempf and his team devised a two-level design which could be used to house either organic or cage-free production.