The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Matthew Steel’s desire to make his mark led to him becoming responsible for thousands of British
Hens
Finishing cattle and producing quality potatoes and cereals have been the core enterprises at Craignathro for two generations, but when Matthew Steel, 24, came home from agriculture college, he was determined to make his own mark on the farm.
“I wanted to find a way of increasing turnover without needing to buy more land,” he said.
“I investigated deer farming, but the figures didn’t stack up. So I looked again at SRUC’s farm management handbook and discovered the returns from freerange egg production looked very interesting.”
Fast-forward a couple of years, and Craignathro has just taken delivery of its second flock of 32,000 free-range birds.
Matthew, who farms in partnership with his parents, Andrew and Carol, found a sympathetic contact in Sir John Campbell, the owner of the Glenrath Eggs empire in the Borders. He was looking for suppliers and following an approach from Matthew, came to visit the proposed site and talk business.
“Sir John knew my grandfather, Jim Steel, because he had been an egg producer in Lanark in the 1950s and 60s and was chairman of the Scottish Egg Producers and Retailers Association for many years,” said Matthew.
“Sir John was keen to do business, so I took advantage of his advice on the whole project and a £100,000 loan he was offering new businesses, but we retain full autonomy on how we run the enterprise.”
Applying for planning permission for such a large unit on the very edge of Forfar was a hurdle, but after five months approval was granted and building began,.
“The minimum unit size is 32,000 hens,” said Matthew. “The maximum flock in each shed is 16,000 birds, so we built two, with a central packing station in the middle and it all became operational in April 2018.”
The first pullets were Hyline Browns, but the latest flock to arrive comprise Warren Browns as they lay more large eggs – the market preference. The birds are delivered by Glenrath at just over 16 weeks of age and after a while, they lay for around 80 weeks.
Both Matthew and his poultry stocksman spent time at Glenrath on work experience, but despite all his preparation he says the scale of the responsibility was initially daunting.
“I lay in bed the night before the first flock arrived thinking I was about to have 32,000 birds dependant on us doing everything right,” he said.
“My father had experience of hens, but when he was involved in the business, a flock of 5,000 hens was a lot, and almost everything is now automated, whether that is feeding, water, or egg collection.”
Despite his fears, the first flock’s performance was good which is just as well because the market became oversupplied in October and prices are well back on the year.
“It was the perfect storm last year because the Fipronil contamination scare created a false market in the UK last summer, pushing prices up and then back down as soon as production in Holland came back. The feed price was also high because of the drought,” he said.
“We’ll cope by being efficient. We’re lucky it was our first flock and production was very good, mortality was very low and we peaked at 60% large eggs when we reached 70 weeks, so we were left with a margin – but it wasn’t as big as the one we had banked on.”
Feed is mixed on the farm and includes wheat, barley, soya, limestone, fibre, rape oil and additives, and the eggs are packed in cases and collected by Glenrath twice a week. There is a threeweek deep fallow period between flocks, with a deep clean done by contractors
Matthew is pleased with the way the egg enterprise dovetails with the rest of the farm – including getting the extra dung for the arable enterprise – and enjoys seeing the hens outside.
“The first flock was a huge learning curve and we’ll do some things differently next time. But so far it has been a good move.”