Cage-free eggs offer many advantages, especially in terms of nutrition and animal welfare. These values need to be promoted more strongly to the general public, and of course with the support of all stakeholders.

Not many people dare to walk alone against the current, especially in the poultry industry, which is highly dynamic and full of risks. In the early 2000s, when animal welfare issues were not even familiar to most Indonesians, Roby Cahyadi Dharma Gandawijaya made the bold decision to establish Indonesia’s first cage-free layer farm.

This system allows hens to move freely in a wide area, be exposed to sunlight, enjoy good air circulation, and walk or run according to their natural instincts. When chickens are raised in this way, stress levels decrease and the eggs produced are of higher quality.

Interestingly, this major decision stemmed from his recurring asthma.
“When I was still running the family broiler and breeder farms, I often learned from and visited layer farms across Indonesia. I went to Sumatra, West Java, Central Java, and East Java. Every time I returned from visiting layer houses, my asthma would flare up. That made me think, ‘If I can get sick in such a short time, what about my employees in the long run?’ From there, I realized that the conventional layer farming model was not suitable for me,” he recalled during an interview at his residence on Wednesday (22/10).

Roby had experience raising broilers, breeders, and layers, so he understood the characteristics of each type of chicken. This experience gave him the confidence to try the cage-free system in 2002, at a time when no one in Indonesia was running such a system. With no references, guidelines, or mentors available, he sought answers on his own through hands-on practice and by regularly attending exhibitions to broaden his knowledge.

“At exhibitions, I met breeders from overseas. At that time, it turned out they also did not really understand cage-free farming. Even though historically, cage-free housing had existed since the 1980s. Perhaps because not everyone was familiar or accustomed to this method, they also did not have proper management guidelines,” he recalled.

Far from a Smooth Journey

Being self-taught led him to failure in the first period. Using an open broiler house that he already owned, his first cage-free population started with 15,000 birds. Due to severe and successive disease outbreaks, by the end of the production period only 2,000 birds remained.

“I still remember my first time raising cage-free chickens. In a single cycle, almost every disease listed in poultry disease textbooks appeared—various respiratory diseases, fowl pox, worms, digestive disorders, cholera, pullorum, fatty liver, even cannibalism. Everything was there. But from that experience, I learned a lot. The second cycle improved, and over time it kept getting better,” he said.

The CEO of PT Inti Prima Satwa Sejahtera (IPSS) did not deny that many problems emerged during the early years of building a cage-free business in Indonesia two decades ago. However, continuous improvements were made, ranging from management practices and housing facilities to feed nutrition.

“From our continuous efforts, I eventually realized that the main issue at that time was the use of commercial layer feed. It wasn’t that the feed itself was wrong, but the chickens’ characteristics and the rearing system were different, so they required a special feed formulation. This also happened because I applied management guidelines from battery cage layer systems exactly the same way to cage-free housing. In fact, they should be very different,” he explained.

This article is an excerpt from the Profile section of Poultry Indonesia Magazine – December 2025 Edition.
Read the full story in Poultry Indonesia Magazine, December 2025 Edition.
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