Success Story – Supporting Poultry Farm Expansion in Telford
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The project entailed complete supply and install including; control panel, 5 hot water coils, 20 Agri-Jets, 4 HV1250 belt drive fans, 4 auger winch motors, 4 auger line motors, a cross auger, wheat auger, external service lighting, dimmable dawn to dusk poultry house lighting, electrical connections of biomass boilers, main shed supply and connections into existing alarm circuits, test and inspection.
Farm History & Expansion
Farmer, Nick Gwynne has grown up on the farm which is now 220 hectares arable farm with 6 poultry sheds. Nick’s father, David installed the first poultry shed 60 years ago and he continues to be involved in the farm undertaking a lot of the paper work and administration.
The recent construction of ‘Shed 6’ at Charlton Farm expands the total bird population at Charlton farm by 41,000 to a total of 195,000.
Nick Gwynne explains his reasoning for the new shed: “Modern poultry farming demands increased production and efficiencies. In this business climate you have to keep doing more to get the same return. Poultry margins are tight so you need to keep doing more. Put simply you need more birds to keep you profit at the same level.”
‘Shed 6’ – Planning and design
Nick undertook most of the planning work himself, in close conjunction with the Environment Agency and Telford & Wrekin Council.
“We wanted to expand our poultry production and the time was right. I had heard of plans for a new housing estate just down the road from the farm, so I decided I would do it now to avoid any future complications with planning permission. Broadly, I knew what I wanted in the shed and approached Hydor with my plans. I wanted some simple features, like putting up a floodlight at the far end of the shed. Hydor also came back to me with some further good ideas based on their experience,” said Nick.
Shaun Morris, Hydor Service Engineer, commented: “We looked at what Nick wanted and developed a solution that suited him – it was a combined effort.”
How Hydor helped
Nick said: “Shaun and Hydor had worked at projects on my farm before and it’s good to talk to them. I’m not the best at remembering things but I can go to them and say; ‘can we change this and do such and such?’ Hydor are flexible to work like that and they get things sorted. Having this sort of relationship with your supplier is very important.”
“Back up is absolutely critical. You’re always going to get teething problems, No two sheds are the same and they all behave differently, but with good back up, you can call them and be confident they will come. I might wake Shaun up early in the morning with a problem but I know he will help. There’s always someone available at Hydor.”
Fans
“I always ‘overdo’ it with the number of roof fans, if you have a boiling hot day (and this often happens just before you thin) you can switch the fans on to make it more comfortable in the shed.”
There are also four tunnel fans at the end of the shed which help to keep the birds cool in extreme conditions.
“Our ventilation configuration is ‘side inlet and roof outlet’ so the fans haven’t got to pull the air as far for the birds to get fresh air. Our building eaves stand at 9ft high opposed to the more common 8ft 6”.
Completion
Most of the work was completed in a four week time frame, co-ordinated as builders, roofers and other suppliers completed their work before finally carrying out systems testing and commissioning. Everything was completed and fired up three days before the birds arrived.
Hydor continue to help Nick to grow accustomed to the sophisticated control panel driven by a Rotem computer. Nick said: “I am mastering it now thanks to ongoing support from Shaun and the Hydor team. The basics you can do easily and there are many other layers that enable so many different things to aid productivity and reducing man hours. All my other sheds, except one, are manual,” said Nick.
“I’m very happy with the new shed and especially with the support I have had from Hydor. The most important thing they have given me peace of mind. I know that when I need something fixed or I need information, they are always available. It means I can spend my time running the farm and not worrying about other things,” said Nick.
