The Duke of Buccleuch, Britain’s largest private landowner, has joined the move to vast multi-tier free range systems.
A 32,000 bird unit has been built on his sweeping Queensberry Estate in Dumfriesshire. And another could follow.
The new unit is the second to be built in Scotland. The first, also consisting of two 16,000 bird sheds linked with an egg room, is being operated by the Peebles-based packer Glenrath Farms.
The man behind the new venture is Drew Guthrie, head of the Duke’s Farms Business Unit which oversees enterprises on a total of 30,000 acres of land in Scotland and Northamptonshire.
Mr Guthrie told the Ranger that the decision to take the multi-tier route was based to a large extent on the air quality inside the unit.
“I looked at systems up and down the country,” Mr Guthrie said, “then I went to Holland and saw units with 24,000 birds per shed with the hens in good form and the egg production excellent and with a tremendous atmosphere inside the house. When you think of working conditions for staff then it really was first class.”
The multi-tier system is supplied by Vencomatic and operates around the removal of manure from under each tier every five days. It will be stacked, under cover, and later spread on arable land.
The estate had looked at a layer enterprise seven years ago but met intense local opposition. This time a site was chosen “virtually in the Duke’s back garden” and the development attracted no opposition at all.
“The only slight issue concerned the fact that we are in an area designated of high landscape value,” said Mr Guthrie, “and there was an issue over a fence line. We have agreed to install three thousand metres of new hedge which is not a problem.”
The first flock of Hy-Line pullets is now 20 weeks of age and has already been visited by representatives from Freedom Food, the British Egg Industry Council and the Farm Animal Welfare Council. Supermarket ASDA has also been among the visitors.
Approval to sell the eggs as free range has been granted because the sheds meet the Freedom Food standards of 9 birds per square metre on the tiers which amounts to 15 birds per square metre of floor space. The assurance scheme also insists that pullets heading for multi-tier units are raised in similar environments.
Freedom Food will continue to monitor the operation of the unit particularly as it has yet to witness the de-stocking of a multi-tier system.
Mr Guthrie said that the FAWC officials were “amazed”. “This is the first multi-tier system they had seen and they were delighted with it,” he went on.
But what will the free range consumer think? “Well all I can say is that we had a female visitor in the other day and she thought it was marvellous,” said Mr Guthrie.
The Estate will monitor the performance of the system for six months before making a decision about further development.
The 83 years old Duke has just been listed as the sixth most powerful figure in the British countryside. The Queensberry Estate runs to a total of 120,000 acres and at its heart is Drumlanrig Castle a noted treasure house of art and furniture. The Estate website talks of “tenderly managed woodlands and countryside”.
Eggs from the new unit will go to Glenrath Farms. That company’s own multi-tier unit is already approaching the end of its first flock of birds. As previously reported in the Ranger the company has already applied for planning permission for two more 16,000 bird sheds on a new site in the Longstruther Valley near Blythe Bridge in Peeblesshire. If that is successful it plans to proceed to open nine more of the linked units creating a 320,000 bird free range farm. The scheme has attracted furious opposition from the local community.
A third Scottish farmer is known to be contemplating investing nearly a million pounds in one of the 32,000 bird units.
