A Conwy poultry farmer’s low-carbon approach to egg production is not only delivering for the environment but for his cost of production too.

Across the entire business – poultry, sheep and beef – his monthly electricity bill is never more than £400 thanks to renewable systems harnessing energy from water, sun and soil.

“Our electricity bills would be thousands of pounds a month without the renewables,’’ calculates Mr Jones, who farms at Derwydd, near the village of Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr, Ruthin, in partnership with his mother, Iola.

His two 16,000-bird poultry sheds would have accounted for a big chunk of that cost because they need constant heat and ventilation.

Mr Jones has also put in place several measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from that system as he drives his business towards being carbon neutral.

“The technology is definitely there to help us, as farmers we have to be a bit brave and just do it,’’ he says.

“People think I am green but I am just tight – being green helps make the bank balance black.’’

A 30kW hydro energy system was installed on a stream on the farm in 2012 and 24kW of photovoltaic panels provide a back-up source of renewable energy when dry weather reduces the flow of water to the hydro system.

An 80kW ground and air source heat pump, which cost around £55,000 including the pipework, fitting out and all the internal works, pumps warm air into the two poultry sheds and heating it to 18℃.

“This is good for bird welfare and productivity because they use less energy to keep warm and, as a result of that, they can put more energy into laying eggs rather than using it to keep themselves warm,’’ says Mr Jones.

It also means that the hens eat 3g/head/day less feed and that is saving the business 35 tonnes of feed and £14,000 a year.

“Those two fewer lorry deliveries a year further reduces the carbon footprint of our eggs,’’ Mr Jones points out.

In 2021, when the second shed was built, it was fitted with a muck drier. This works by capturing heat from the hens as it rises and forces that air back down onto the muck belt.

This process removes around 25% of the moisture from the muck and drier muck means considerably less ammonia too.

Air from the hen shed is pushed into the air scrubber where it is sprayed with sulphuric acid.

The acid attaches itself to ammonia, and water is then added to reduce the pH level to neutral.

With this system we can produce fertiliser with a nitrogen value of 20%.

The saving in the cost of buying in fertiliser easily pays for the cost of running the scrubber but the disadvantage is the capital cost – it needs to be made of stainless steel so it costs around £90,000.

This month the business is switching from a Lohmann Brown to a white layer, also a Lohmann, because they have a longer productive life and therefore produce more eggs.

The houses are currently depopulated at 72 weeks but with the whites it will be 100 weeks – the eggs produced per bird per cycle will increase from 330 to 500.

“It means that for every four crops of birds we would have had with the Lohmann Brown we will have three and that has all sorts of benefits, including reducing the number of times we need to clean out the sheds too from four to three,’’ says Mr Jones.

Elsewhere on the farm, the business has a Glastir contract to manage 1,000 acres of heather moorland where there are black grouse breeding.

There is also 30 acres of peatland, which needs to be kept moist. “We have done this by blocking drains to stop the water seeping away,’’ Mr Jones explains.

“It’s important that we look after these peatlands because they store thousands of tonnes of carbon, they’re great carbon sinks.’’