Jørn Nissen Kokærgaard

With a heart beating for animal welfare

Jørn Nissen is a producer of organic chickens and is passionate about animal welfare and ecology. Jørn lives with his wife Lis, who is a teacher. Their daughter Louise lives at home, while their son Rasmus has left home.

There are two batches of organic chickens, with approximately 5,600 chickens in each batch. One batch of females and one batch of males, because females and males grow differently.

Why did you choose chickens?

In 2015, I got talking to Økologisk Landsforening, who told me that Sødam needed chickens with better animal welfare - either free-range or organic chickens.

I had dreamed of working with animals again and contacted my bank. They gave me a loan so I could rebuild the stables, but I had to promise the bank that I would continue until I was 80 years old, says Jørn smiling.

A typical working day

The chickens come out every morning at 8am - they have a small veranda and access to a large outdoor area. The lights are turned on in the barn at 8am and then the first ones start to go out. The season and the weather also play a role - in the summer, many people want to be outside in the nice weather, and then they only go back inside when it gets dark.

At night I have to keep them inside, otherwise they can be taken by foxes or buzzards. If it rains, it's hard to get them all to go outside.

Future plans with the farm and chickens

The area where the chickens go has organic apple trees planted for the chickens to enjoy and I can sell the organic apples.

I also have a large forest and my plan is to have organic forest pigs there.